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Enacting Jewish superdiversity at the boundary: classroom interaction in times of terror and war
Author(s): Gacic, Nina; Johnsen, Elisabeth Tveito
Date: 2026
Topics: October 7 2023 Attacks and Aftermath, Schools: Non-Jewish, Schools: Seconday / High Schools, Attitudes to Jews: Knowledge of Jews, Jewish Education, Main Topic: Education, Diversity
Abstract: This article explores superdiversity as enacted classroom interaction between upper-secondary pupils and young people who identify as Jews. The empirical material under study is part of an educational programme called ‘Jewish pathfinders’ launched by the Norwegian government in 2015. The purpose of the pathfinders’ work is to speak in school classrooms about everyday Jewish life as young people living in Norway, but the terror attacks of 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza have impacted on their classroom interactions. Building on Akkerman and Bakker’s article ‘Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects’, we ask the following questions: How is Jewish superdiversity enacted in interactions between Jewish pathfinders and upper-secondary pupils in Norway? Furthermore, how is the boundary between upper-secondary pupils and Jewish pathfinders a particularly relevant site for learning about Jewish superdiversity? Our study reveals that learning at the boundary can be challenging and sometimes even impossible to achieve. Our theoretical contribution to the field is therefore three novel concepts: boundary acceptance, boundary closure, and barrier objects.
Identity and inter religious understanding in Jewish schools in England
Author(s): Ipgrave, Julia
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Education, Schools: Jewish Schools, Religious Education, Interfaith Dialogue and Relations, Multiculturalism
Abstract: This article sets up a dialogue between auto-referential (looking to self) and allo-referential (looking to the other) approaches to religious difference and applies these to education for inter religious understanding in Jewish schools. It begins by arguing that the multiculturalism of the 1980s and 1990s set up a duality of self and other, with the responsibility for looking to ‘the other’ (allo-reference) resting largely on the majority community and the licence to look to self (auto-reference) being given to minority communities. Within the Jewish community, multiculturalism supported and legitimated the development of an inward-looking Jewish identity-based education. This was challenged in the 2000s however by the new outward-looking emphases of the community cohesion agenda, and so Jewish schools have had to negotiate a place for themselves between auto- and allo-reference. Brief case studies illustrate contrasting ways in which two schools have positioned themselves in relation to these two poles. In School A, the imperative towards ‘the other’ attempts an openness to ‘the other’ in ‘the other’s’ own terms, whereas in School B the same imperative towards ‘the other’ is framed within the auto-referential framework of being and doing Jewish.
Giving voice to ‘the silent minority’: the experience of religious students in secondary school religious education lessons
Author(s): Moulin, Dan
Date: 2011
Topics: Schools: Non-Jewish, Religious Education, Main Topic: Education, Interfaith Dialogue and Relations
Abstract: This paper explores the experiences of secondary school students from religious backgrounds in Religious Education (RE). A total of 16 loosely structured, group, pair and individual interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 34 school-age members of four religious communities: one Jewish and three Christian. The findings make a useful contribution to ongoing debates concerning pedagogy and practice in secondary RE. Members of the religious communities consulted often found their tradition stereotyped and simplified in RE lessons. Respondents also found that at times they were expected to be, or felt the need to be, spokespeople or representatives of their religion. However, experiences of religious intolerance and prejudice, or the fear of it, were common. This led to some students being reluctant to reveal or discuss their religious identity in lessons.
The case of the Jewish High School in Berlin: a denominational school dealing with diversity
Author(s): Müller, Christine
Date: 2005
Topics: Schools: Jewish Schools, Jewish Education, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: The following contribution deals with the conception of Jewish schools in Germany. With regard to the British debate about state funding for religious schools, current developments in the Jewish educational system in Germany will be presented. After this, the constitutional framework for the establishment of denominational schools in Germany will be analysed. The second and major part of the article deals, as a case study, with the Jewish High School in Berlin, which is the only Jewish secondary school in contemporary Germany. In an empirical qualitative approach, the desires and expectations of the pupils in their religious education take centre stage. Before moving to the empirical study, an overview of the history of the Jewish High School, its re‐establishment in 1993 and a profile of the pupils and the school will be provided, in order to understand the special character of this school. The conclusion in the last part raises the question of new directions emerging from a Jewish school which has pupils who are heterogeneous culturally, religiously and socially and which does not react with a strategy of cultural preservation, but with a policy of inter‐religious dialogue.
The role of education in Jewish continuity: a response to Jonathan Sacks
Author(s): Short, Geoffrey
Date: 2005
Topics: Schools: Jewish Schools, Jewish Education, Jewish Continuity, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: Contrasting explanations of Jewish survival form the backdrop to this article. For Jonathan Sacks (1994) the crucial factor has been the role played by Jewish education; indeed, he claims that the demographic threat currently facing Anglo‐Jewry is largely the result of the community having neglected the Jewish education of its children over the past 200 years. He advocates reinstating this communal responsibility as the sovereign Jewish value in order to deal with the threat. In my view, the influence that Sacks attributes to education and particularly to Jewish schools is overstated. It stems from a misreading of modern Anglo‐Jewish history and from a failure to take fully into account the ways in which Jewish schools impact on their pupils’ ethnic and religious identity. These considerations apart, I contend that prioritising education will not necessarily strengthen the commitment to Jewish continuity that is the sine qua non of survival.
Designing a curriculum model for the teaching of the Bible in UK Jewish secondary schools: a case study
Author(s): Kohn, Eli
Date: 2012
Topics: Schools: Jewish Schools, Jewish Education, Curriculum and Schoolbooks, Teaching and Pedagogy, Main Topic: Education, Jewish Texts and Text Study
Abstract: This paper describes the process of designing a curriculum model for Bible teaching in UK Jewish secondary schools. This model was designed over the period 2008–2010 by a team of curriculum specialists from the Jewish Curriculum Partnership UK in collaboration with a group of teachers from Jewish secondary schools. The paper first outlines the context of UK Jewish secondary schools and then the curriculum context in which this specific model was designed. It then details the model itself and concludes with a discussion of the implementation of the model and associated challenges.
Bagels, schnitzel and McDonald's—‘fuzzy frontiers’ of Jewish identity in an English Jewish secondary school
Author(s): Scholefield, Lynne
Date: 2004
Topics: Schools: Jewish Schools, Jewish Education, Kashrut, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Education, Schools: Jewish Pupils in Jewish Schools
Abstract: Using data gathered during a case study of the ‘culture’ of a Jewish secondary school, this article explores the indeterminate boundaries of Jewish identity. By examining the mechanisms that control what and who comes into the school, and what is approved and disapproved of in the school, a picture emerges of what and who is counted as ‘Jewish’. There is detailed consideration of the admissions policy, the rules about kosher food, the explicitly religious symbols in use, the importance of Israel and the contested issue of McDonald's. Sometimes the boundaries are very clear‐cut, but in some cases there is ambiguity and disagreement that make the frontiers of English Jewish student identity decidedly fuzzy.