{"title":"A Little Bit More Far than Mexico: How 3- and 4-year Old Jewish Children Understand Israel","authors":"Lauren Applebaum, A. Hartman, Sivan Zakai","doi":"10.1080/15244113.2020.1834890","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study examines how 3- and 4-year-old Jewish children think and feel about Israel. The research, conducted as a collaboration between scholars and practitioner-researchers who work in Jewish early childhood centers, draws upon group interviews, elicitation/provocation exercises, a drawing task, and teacher documentation to investigate how some of the youngest learners in Jewish educational settings conceive of Israel. We found that 3- and 4-year-old Jewish children think about Israel as a foreign country with its own customs, landmarks, and language. They also think about Israel as a distinctly Jewish place, with a special role in Jewish traditions and stories. We found no evidence that 3- and 4-year-old children reflect on Israel as a place of personal meaning for their own Jewish lives. This absence challenges both the theory and practice of Israel education in the early childhood setting.","PeriodicalId":42565,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2020-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/15244113.2020.1834890","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Jewish Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15244113.2020.1834890","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
ABSTRACT This study examines how 3- and 4-year-old Jewish children think and feel about Israel. The research, conducted as a collaboration between scholars and practitioner-researchers who work in Jewish early childhood centers, draws upon group interviews, elicitation/provocation exercises, a drawing task, and teacher documentation to investigate how some of the youngest learners in Jewish educational settings conceive of Israel. We found that 3- and 4-year-old Jewish children think about Israel as a foreign country with its own customs, landmarks, and language. They also think about Israel as a distinctly Jewish place, with a special role in Jewish traditions and stories. We found no evidence that 3- and 4-year-old children reflect on Israel as a place of personal meaning for their own Jewish lives. This absence challenges both the theory and practice of Israel education in the early childhood setting.