What Do We Mean by Jewish Education in Professional Development for Early Childhood Education?

Abstract

In this study we investigated the perceptions and interpretations of 14 various stakeholders in the field of teacher preparation and early childhood education regarding what and how Jewish education should be learned and taught, in general, and to preschool children in contemporary Israel, in particular. The present study, carried out in the spring of 2011, employed an “ethogenic” methodology (Harré & Secord, 1972), such that that the interpretations of Jewish education were extracted from the respondents’ written statements about what they consider Jewish education and what they believe the implications are for teaching students and young children in Israel.

Acknowledgments

Clodie Tal is a developmental psychologist who has served since 2007 as the Head of the ECE Department at Levinsky College of Education in Tel Aviv, Israel, where she researches ECE, classroom management and discourse as mediation. The author was born in 1955 in Romania and immigrated with her family to Israel in 1970. She completed her master's degree in clinical psychology and Ph.D. in psychology and is a developmental psychologist. She has spent most of her professional career doing teacher and preschool educators’ preparation and most of her research is concerned with ECE professional development. E-mail: [email protected]