As part of his individual project at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership, Dr. Nathaniel Leibowitz (a cohort 20 fellow) conducted a survey in which he examined trends among the non-Haredi Jewish public on the question of “integrative education,” that is, the merging of the state and state-religious school systems. The survey, which appears in its entirety on the site of the Israel Democracy Institute, included 500 respondents from the non-Haredi public (religious, traditional religious, traditional non-religious, and secular). The findings show that while a majority of the public (64%) supports the existing separation between the various educational streams, when survey participants were asked where they would register their children if they had three options available to them — a state school, a state-religious school, and an integrated school — the largest share (33%) responded that they would register their children at an integrated school.
The survey indicates that support for integrating the streams is strongest among the population that defines itself as traditional: more than 40% of this group responded that they would register their child at an integrated school, underscoring the importance of this group in preventing polarization between the various Jewish sectors in Israel.
Dr. Leibowitz’s project is one of 19 to be presented by MSEL cohort 20 fellows over a two-day project presentations conference at MLI on Monday and Tuesday 10-11 June 2013. The full program of the conference (in Hebrew) can be found here.
