Beyond Curriculum Alignment: Cognitive Demand and the Translation of the Merdeka Curriculum in Islamic Religious Education

Textbooks serve as a key link between curriculum policy and classroom practice, yet their role in implementing Indonesia's Merdeka Curriculum in Islamic Religious Education (PAI) remains underexplored. Unlike previous studies that have examined curriculum implementation, teachers' practices, or assessment separately, this study investigates how the official Grade 12 PAI textbook translates curriculum expectations into learning objectives and assessment. Using a qualitative approach, it analyses the alignment among the Learning Outcomes (CP), Learning Objectives (TP), and assessment across three textbook chapters representing the Qur'an–Hadith, Aqidah, and Akhlak domains. The analysis integrates Porter's curriculum alignment model, Biggs's constructive alignment theory, and Valverde et al.'s textbook-as-curriculum-mediator framework. The findings show that although the learning objectives generally reflect the intended CP, the assessment reduces cognitive demand by emphasising remembering and understanding rather than analysis, reflection, and problem-solving. This reduction reflects not only assessment design but also tension between the normative–textual nature of Islamic knowledge and the constructivist orientation of the Merdeka Curriculum. The findings suggest that existing curriculum alignment frameworks could be strengthened by incorporating epistemological alignment as an additional analytical dimension.