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Towards a Conceptual Framework of Jewish Education: a Mapping Definition

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Towards a Conceptual Framework of Jewish Education: a Mapping Definition Towards a Conceptual Framework of Jewish Education: A Mapping Definition Published in 2005 in J. Cohen (Ed.), Languages and literatures in Jewish education: Studies in honor of Mike Rosenak . Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 385-404. Erik H. Cohen Shlomit Levy School of Education Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry Bar Ilan University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem In memory of Yael and Eyal Sorek killed at their home by a terrorist Introduction Changes in Jewish education: An overview The concept of Jewish education underwent noteworthy developments over the last five decades. Until the midst of the 20 th century, Jewish education meant, almost exclusively, religious education. Informally it took place in the home, synagogue and community, and formally (predominantly for boys) in the heder and the yeshiva , the emphasis being on traditional religious texts. Jewish education changed dramatically during the last 50 years or so, following the social and political processes, as well as scientific and technical developments, that took place during the 20 th century. Among these, we could mention the emergence of public educational systems in most Western countries, the process of disintegration of the extended family and community structure, secularization, the destruction of European Jewry including its network of religious schools and the foundation of the State of Israel, with its problems as a new state striving simultaneously both to absorb immigrants and establish its place in the world and among the Jewish people. All these led to the development of very different types of Jewish educational systems compared to those that prevailed in the past in most Western communities and in Israel. While it is beyond the scope of this article to examine the history of Jewish education and the social impact on it, an extensive body of literature is available to readers who are seeking more detailed information. Cohen and Horencyzk (1999) and Himmelfarb and DellaPergola (1989) each have edited volumes examining Jewish education around the world. Steinberg (1979, 1984, 1986, 1989a, 1989b) analyzes impacts on Jewish education in various communities. Elazar (1989) looks at the organizational side of Jewish education, and Cohen E.H. (1997b) study on the shlihut (emissary) program looks in depth at the implications of sending Israeli teachers to Diaspora communities. See also Cohen, E.H. (1991) covering the whole Jewish educational system in France. For a 1 philosophical approach, see Rich and Rosenak (1999) and more generally the book of Rosenak (1995). Over the last few decades, Jewish communities around the world have developed comprehensive educational systems such as day schools, community centers, winter and summer camps, youth organizations, and adult education programs to name only the most prominent. The kind of Jewish education which takes place in each of these settings differs in several important ways from what was practiced in the past such as: co- education for boys and girls, an emphasis on fostering “Jewish identity” and the importance of Israel, particularly through the possibility for many students to visit the Holy Land with school or youth group sponsored trips in the framework of Israel Experience programs. For more details on these innovations in Jewish education see, for instance, Cohen, E.H. on informal Jewish education (1992, 1997a) and Bar Shalom (1998) and Cohen, E.H. (2000) on organized meetings with Israeli youth. Visits to Israel and their impact on Jewish identity have received much attention, for example: Chazan (1997) and Chazan and Koransky (1997), Cohen, S. (1986, 1992, 1994, Cohen and Wall 1993) and Cohen, E.H. (1999a, 1999b, 2003b, Cohen and Cohen 2000), Hochstein (1986), Mittelberg (1994, 1999) and Saxe et al. (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004) on the new birthright israel free tour program. The relatively young field of research on Jewish education has endeavored to document, understand and analyze the changes that have, and are continuing to take place. In order to establish a base of cumulative knowledge on the subject, a systematic approach is needed. To this end, Levy (1991) examines the traits of a ‘good school’ and Lewy (1985) the student’s relationship with the school. The aim of this paper is to try to meet this need by providing a general framework that assesses simultaneously and systematically the various aspects of Jewish education. This will be done by formulating a mapping sentence that encompasses the variety of aspects implied in the broad concept and praxis of Jewish education. The Concept of a Mapping Sentence The concept of education, like most social-behavioural concepts, is multivariate. Jewish education is a variety of this comprehensive concept. Furthermore, as mentioned above, the branch of Jewish education is in itself multivariate and complex. Lewy (1985) in summarizing his review on the educational issue of students’ relationships to their schools, claims that 80 years of research did not advance understanding of this subject. He ascribes this phenomenon to the absence of a theoretical framework that would allow for interpreting the data and thus may lead to “systematization of cumulative information”, which is true also for the concept of education in its holistic sense. This need for joint formalization of theory and research led Guttman to introduce the mapping sentence device. The mapping sentence is a definitional framework for the universe content of a given issue that provides a basis for stating and testing hypotheses and thus facilitates systematic theory construction (Borg and Shye, 1995; Guttman, 1954, 1965, 1982, 1994a; Levy, 1976, 1985, 1994, in press; Shye, 1978). A mapping sentence coordinates formal concepts called facets and informal verbal connectives. A facet is one way of classifying 2 the research content. Since any research content is usually classified in more than one way, the mapping sentence includes several content facets. Each facet appears in the mapping sentence as a set of elements in bracketed columnar form. The elements match the name (rule) of the facet. Verbal connectives are added to the facets to make the mapping sentence readable in ordinary language like the one presented below for defining the universe of content of Jewish education. It should be noted that, “the problem of proposing fruitful facets for the design of the content for a system of variables has generally been found to be a far more difficult one than for that of proposing background variables or experimental conditions for populations” (Guttman, 1992, p. 595). The Mapping Sentence Based on the effectiveness of the mapping definition in proposing a content design in previous studies, we have adopted the facet approach to the conceptualization of Jewish education. Examples of such studies, to mention but a few, are: Bloombaum, (1999) Elizur and Sagie (1999), Guttman (1965, 1992), Guttman and Levy (1991) Halevi (1976) and Waks (1995). The facet approach suggests viewing each of the previous attempts at a definition of Jewish education as emphasizing a specific aspect of the multifaceted concept of Jewish education. Below is suggested a tentative mapping sentence for assessing Jewish education. It includes 13 content facets, 12 of which are explicit content facets, each referring to a certain aspect of Jewish education. The opening facet labeled (X) specifies the population that assesses Jewish education (such as educator, parent, etc) and hence it is not a content facet. Facets B and C specify the institutional framework and its openness to the surrounding environment. The recipients and the educating agents of Jewish education are detailed in facets A and D. Facets E-J relate to the didactics and subject matters . The goals of Jewish education (such as improving Jewish commitment or constructing Jewish identity) are detailed in facets K and L. The name (rule) of each facet (in bold face) appears right before or after its list of elements, depending on the verbal structure of the sentence. The suggested mapping sentence includes the spectrum of aspects that are mentioned in the scientific literature. For instance, the four ‘common places’ of Joseph Schwab (1973): 1) teacher/teaching, 2) student/learning, 3) subject matter and 4) context/environment are clearly incorporated within the framework of this mapping sentence. 1) Teacher/teaching: "teacher" is the educating agent specified in facet D, while "teaching" is expressed both in the connective "delivered by" and the didactic approach specified in facet E. 2) Student/learning: "student" is the recipient of education specified in facet A. 3) Subject matter: five facets (F, G, H, I, J) relate in detail to the subject matter. 4) Context environment: facets B and C concern to this common place. 3 The mapping sentence includes further aspects and approaches such the objectives of education (facets K and L). As discussed later, these facets relate to Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Thus the mapping definition enables systematic extension of the scope of Jewish education, suggesting possible directions for further investigation. While the simplest educational act can be viewed as an interaction only between a teacher and a learner, Jewish education today involves a complex interaction between numerous different parties, such as teachers, managers, educators, instructors, parents, students, etc. Each of these parties has expectations, goals, inputs etc., and therefore a comprehensive analysis of the Jewish educational system should take into account the assessments of the 4 parties that are relevant to educational issues under study. As above mentioned, these parties are detailed in the Facet labeled (X) at the beginning of the mapping sentence and constitute the population facet, to distinguish from the further thirteen content facets. The population facet (X) and the content facets (A-L) that are located to the left of the arrow in the mapping sentence, are called the domain of the mapping sentence (Guttman 1994a). The content facets (A-L) and their rationale Facet A specifies the recipients of Jewish education, who may be youth or adults from different settings.
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