All those concerned with Jewish education and the Modern Orthodox community – and I count myself in that group – owe Rabbi Dr. Zvi Grumet a huge yeyasher kochakha. Whether frequently or occasionally, whether prompted by a study (such as Nishma’s), a news story (such as “half-shabbosâ€), or a personal encounter, we have wondered about the impact – and hence value – of the huge investment of 12+ years of day school education. To his credit, Rabbi Grumet went far beyond a passing thought or Shabbat meal conversation and produced a thorough survey and thoughtful study, studded with scores of multi-color pie charts and bar graphs, entirely on his own. For this alone he is to be commended. (Full disclosure – we have been friends for over 25 years)
I leave it to professionally-trained and experienced social scientists to comment on the study’s methodology and the validity of its conclusions. The author (pp. 1-2) acknowledges some of the limitations of his approach to administering the survey and collecting the data, and invites others to help in analyzing the results. My sense is that observers of the Modern Orthodox community will find many of Rabbi Grumet’s conclusions confirming of their own impressions: the critical role socialization plays in levels of observance and belief; the focus on orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy; and the strong correlation between family status (marriage, children) and the adherence to communal norms. While I concur with the areas for further study proposed by Rabbi Grumet (p. 65), I would like to suggest several others, some of which might impact the conclusions he draws.
First, the study understandably focuses on the key educational institutions of Modern Orthodoxy – K-12 day schools and Israeli yeshivot/seminaries – and their relation to current practice and belief. Nevertheless, seeking to correlate those extensive “inputs†with long-term outcomes must include greater attention to the intervening institutions in which day school alumni find themselves, specifically college/university. How many attended YU/Stern, or went to secular colleges? Did they dorm or commute/come home frequently? Was there a robust Orthodox community on campus, or a small one? To what extent were they involved with the Jewish community on campus, and if so, what sort (Chabad, Hillel, Orthodox student group)? Were they producers of Jewish life, or primarily passive consumers? While 12 or more years of education is certainly a major investment in any person’s formation, an individual’s identity continues to evolve beyond that framework, and the impact of this crucial 4-year phase deserves both mention and attention in such a study.
Similarly, the focus on the “endpoints†– respondents’ day school years and their current beliefs and practices – fails to capture the winding path most contemporary millennials find themselves traveling on. Rather than seeing identity formation as a process of steadily hardening clay or papier mache, culminating by the late-20s or mid-30s, many sociologists of religion now admit to a continually evolving religious identity, which may experience periods of relative stability, but only rarely permanent settlement. Openness to change is now life-long, evidenced in the increasing incidence of religious change throughout one’s life. Learning what factors or influences contribute to a person’s religious evolution – college setting, peer group, professional training, work environment and colleagues, neighborhood and friendships, etc. – is vital to understanding the linkage between our day school system and Orthodox identity in adulthood, especially as the length of time grows between high school and marriage (when identity exploration seems to ‘settle down,’ at least temporarily). Such a sociological reality highlights the need for longitudinal tracking of individuals, such as Christian Smith does in his National Study of Youth and Religion. (Indeed, correlating the responses to the ages of respondents – an indicator of how many years have passed since high school or the gap year – could yield very interesting analyses.) This remains a desideratum for a fuller understanding of the phenomenon being studied.
Even the institutions themselves referred to in Rabbi Grumet’s study bear further differentiation. In section IV, “Jewish education†(p. 43ff.), we learn of the disparity between what students were taught in school and their current practices and beliefs. However, we all know that not only is there variety among day schools (Modern Orthodox, Centrist Orthodox) regarding beliefs (pp. 47ff.), but even within a day school, there is a range of teachers and personal hashkafah, in spite of the school’s mission statement (this is especially true in smaller communities that often draw on local Haredi residents or kollel members to teach in the Modern Orthodox school). Probing how students related emotionally to their alma maters or to specific teachers – were they fond of their education, their peers, their teachers – may have been an interesting question to help probe the correlation of what students were taught to current beliefs. Moreover, we are anecdotally familiar with the skeptical or even cynical students who, as part of their own individuation, seek to challenge the authority figures in their lives – most often, their teachers. Perhaps asking respondents whether they believed what they were taught when they were in school would have helped frame the extent to which this is a post-high school development, or actually had its roots much earlier in the students’ religious development.
These reflections and questions were all spurred by Rabbi Grumet’s excellent and thought-provoking study, the first of its kind focusing entirely on Modern Orthodox day school alumni. While we have been treated to the initial results, the study screams out “darsheni†- even beyond Rabbi Grumet’s initial and cautious conclusions – but also, zil gmor. It is now up to us and to the field to pick up the baton and take the study further, as Rabbi Grumet himself encourages us.
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The author, a day school graduate, is an associate professor in Emory University who studies American religion. He also serves as a program officer at The AVI CHAI Foundation that supports North American day schools, and spent two years as head of a Modern Orthodox high school in Atlanta.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2018 10:39AM by mlb.
