From Mystical Roots to Modern Horizons: Leading Educational Transformation in an Indonesian Islamic Boarding School ( Pesantren )

Indonesian pesantren (Islamic Boarding Schools) are unique traditional institutions that have educated communities for centuries. While their recent transformations are widely acknowledged, their internal change mechanisms – particularly the complex interplay beyond a single leader – remain under-theorized. This chapter addresses this gap by analysing the significant educational transition of a pesantren in East Java, which evolved from mystical roots to a semi-modern paradigm. This mixed-method case study employs an innovative synthesis of Geels’s multi-level-perspective (MLP) and Fullan’s leadership theory, which was analyzed through discourse network analysis (DNA). The findings demonstrate how leadership functioned as a ‘system leader’, fostering ‘Moral Purpose’ and ‘Coherence’ to reconcile tradition and modernity. However, the DNA reveals that the transformation’s success was contingent not solely on this leader, but on a dynamic network process. This process depended on structural brokers navigating niche-regime dynamics and a dominant, collective effort focused on ‘Stabilization’ to protect innovations from regime inertia. This chapter offers a novel analytical framework, proving that change in traditional contexts is a networked, collective achievement rather than a solo performance.