"God made beautiful things": Proper faith and religious authority in a Jordanian high school

Outside the formal and intended curriculum in Jordanian schools, the efforts of students and instructors to teach about religion and living piously as Muslim women span a myriad of spaces and approaches. At the al-Khatwa Secondary School for Girls, tensions surrounding religious authority were enmeshed with struggles outside school, specifically with a local piety movement and with a politics of authenticity that has women at its center. Competing interpretations of Islamic orthodoxy, and contests for moral authority, come to the fore in schools in unique ways, and schools provide a space and tools for young women to negotiate these tensions.