Search Results

Jewish Lives and Jewish Education in the UK: School, Family and Society

Date: 2024

Topics: Main Topic: Education, Jewish Schools, Jewish Students, Youth, Teenagers, Coronavirus/Covid, Family and Household, Israel Attachment, Israel Education

Abstract: The book explores the evolving relationships between parents and children, the significance of the Jewish school in their lives, how young people think about religious practices, and their lives in the UK. It addresses issues related to families and schooling and pays special attention to the transitions to secondary school and then to life opportunities in the following years. It also uncovers the effect of these transitions on the family, and of the family on those transitions. The book views these phenomena through the prism of a ten-year period from when research participants were eleven years old until they were twenty-one, drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks to help make sense of what was observed. The data help clarify how Jewish schools function as both public and community-based institutions, and what they do and do not contribute to the lives of young people. The research reported includes large scale survey data sets as well as repeated in-depth interviewswith parents and their children. The findings have multiple implications for practitioners, policy makers and researchers as they seek ways to understand and engage with families and schools. This book also appeals to researchers who are interested in the development of religious and cultural identity in the context of minority groups within multicultural societies.

A Still Small Voice: Considering the Significance of Teacher Narratives in Contemporary Jewish Education

Author(s): Pomson, Alex D M

Editor(s): Rich, Yisrael; Bar-Lev, Mordekhai; Rosenak, Michael

Date: 1999

Topics: Jewish Education, Jewish Teachers, Jewish Schools, Main Topic: Education, Narrative, Teaching and Pedagogy

Knowledge That Doesn't Just Sit There: Considering a Reconception of the Curriculum Integration of Jewish and General Studies

Author(s): Pomson, Alex

Date: 2001

Topics: Main Topic: Education, Jewish Schools, Curriculum

Abstract: Since the onset of modernity, Jewish all-day schools have widely aspired to the curriculum integration of Jewish and general studies. This article surveys some of the most significant reasons why this ideal has largely remained unrealized. It argues that schools committed to an integrative ideal might benefit from reconceiving of integration in a manner which involves grounding it within constructivist/cognitivist assumptions about teaching and learning. A working model is offered for what the integration of Jewish and general studies might look like when conceived in this way. The article draws evidence from the curriculum of a recently established Jewish day school in Britain, suggesting that the instances displayed by this case, while constituting a weak form of integration, strongly embody a fertile notion of how students might be initiated into making sense of their world in an integrated fashion.

Critical history and collective memory : a problem with Jewish education

Author(s): Pomson, Alex Daniel Martin

Date: 1994

Topics: Main Topic: Education, Jewish Education, Jewish Schools, Jewish Students, Jewish Studies, Jewish Teachers, Jewish History, Teaching and Pedagogy, Curriculum

Abstract: This research has been stimulated by the profound ambivalence which Jewish schools show in deciding whether or how to teach Jewish history. This ambivalence is first examined in the context of a philosophical analysis of the relationship between critical history and other forms of historical consciousness. Finding this approach deficient, a psychological examination of how Jewish students experience the study of Jewish history is proposed. A critical review of research into children's historical thinking leads to the suggestion that alternative research traditions may be more fruitfully employed here. As a result, it is proposed to apply a concept mapping methodology to the investigation of what Jewish students acquire from the critical study of Jewish history. Theoretical problems raised by this proposal are confronted and resolved, and a defensible research strategy is then formulated according to series of explicitly articulated empirical and theoretical assumptions. This culminates in the presentation and description of an instrument for the generation and analysis of conceptual representations of Jewish historical knowledge in cognitive structure. Two case studies are offered. These are followed by a discussion of (1) how these studies might inform debate about the consequences of teaching critical Jewish history in Jewish schools; (2) the possibilities offered by applying a concept mapping methodology to Jewish education in general.

When the Heart is Stilled: Adolescent Jewish Lives Interrupted by COVID-19

Author(s): Miller, Helena; Pomson, Alex

Date: 2022

Topics: Main Topic: Education, Jewish Schools, Jewish Pupils, Coronavirus/Covid, Family and Household, Teenagers

Abstract: This study explored the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Jewish lives of teenagers in Jewish schools in the UK. We found that young people have been thrown back on the resources they locate under their own roofs. For some, it has resulted in a thin version of Jewish life and a sense of disappointment. For others, the Jewish resources at home have been sufficient. While, generally, the tempo of their public Jewish lives has been disrupted, the Jewish rhythm of their lives at home have continued, if more muted than usual.

Jewish lives Interrupted

Author(s): Miller, Helena; Pomson, Alex

Date: 2021

Topics: Coronavirus/Covid, Main Topic: Other, Jewish Students, Jewish Schools, Schools: Seconday / High Schools, Youth, Mental Health, Surveys, Focus Groups, Jewish Youth, Jewish Youth Work, Youth Movements, Israel Tours

Abstract: During February and March 2020, the world was plunged into responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. This saw unprecedented restrictions to people’s lives in an effort to prevent the spread of a highly infectious disease.

In the UK, from 23rd March 2020, the entire population was put into “lockdown” by the government, effectively suspending almost all forms of activity outside the home. By the time of writing, in the Autumn of 2021, the UK has endured three lockdowns resulting in enormous disruption to every sphere of life. The country has not yet returned to normality.

The effect on every aspect of people’s lives – family, mental wellbeing, social, economic, educational and religious - has been immense. This study explores the effect of the pandemic on the Jewish lives of teenagers. It pays
special attention to three key moments in their Jewish development: bar/bat mitzvah; Israel
tour and summer camp; and their graduation from school.

Beyond Borders: Glimpsing the Underlying Purposes of Day School Education in the Midst of a Pandemic

Author(s): Pomson, Alex; Aharon, Nettie

Date: 2021

Topics: Coronavirus/Covid, Main Topic: Education, Jewish Schools, Teaching and Pedagogy, Students

Abstract: This paper examines data gathered from Jewish day school students in North America, Europe and Argentina about their experiences of remote schooling during the first 4 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data report on student access to technology, student satisfaction with the remote-learning pedagogies their schools employed, students’ feelings about what they gained from this experience, and how Judaic studies and general studies compared when delivered remotely. The paper provides an opportunity to probe cultural and structural differences between day school education in different cultural contexts and especially the differences between more communitarian and more individualistic school orientations.

The View Along the Way: A Longitudinal Study of Jewish Lives

Author(s): Miller, Helena; Pomson, Alex

Date: 2021

Topics: Jewish Schools, Longitudinal Studies, Schools: Non-Jewish, Jewish Pupils, Family and Household, Main Topic: Other, Narrative

Abstract: In 2011 we started following a cohort of 1,000 Jewish 11-year-olds as they entered Jewish and non-Jewish secondary schools in Britain. We were interested in finding out about their Jewish behaviors, attitudes and identity, milestones, and significant events. What follows in this article is an analysis of six family stories, which show how we have been charting change over time in three ways—through themes that develop within a single family over time, themes that develop across the sample of six families over time, and themes that resonate with all six families at one moment in time.

Secondary School Choice as a Window on Jewish Faith Schools in Contemporary British Society

Author(s): Miller, Helena; Pomson, Alex; Hacohen Wolf, Hagit

Date: 2016

Topics: Jewish Schools, Jewish Community, Jewish Pupils, Parenthood, Surveys, Main Topic: Education

Abstract: Research into school choice has generally explored both the processes by which choices are made and the considerations that parents explore when making this important decision on behalf of their children. This article examines the secondary school choices of Jewish parents in the United Kingdom. It explores parents’ reasons for choosing to select Jewish faith secondary schools. We frame our arguments against the back- drop of the wider faith-school phenomenon in the UK, and as with the Christian communities, we find a disconnect between the small number of Jewish adults attending places of worship regularly and the growing number of Jewish children attend- ing Jewish faith schools. We show that for many parents, schooling is synonymous with Jewish socialization, or encul- turation; developing networks of Jewish friends, providing sufficient cultural resources to enable participation in Jewish life, and nurturing distinctive values. We show how Jewish schools have become more than places for academic advance- ment for these families; they have become the primary locus of Jewish community.

Search results