Mirjam Schmida

Non‐formal education: a major educational force in the postmodern era

This study aims to describe the current position of non‐formal education (NFE) as a major educational force in the postmodern world, and to analyze its philosophical and theoretical assumptions. Far from being ‘supplementary education’ or ‘extracurricular activities’, NFE has developed into a worldwide educational industry. However, it has yet to be studied as an independent educational approach. Aimed at all ages and literacy levels, NFE challenges traditional concepts of education. It affects society as a whole and the life and conduct of individuals, and has influenced formal education, which has adopted many of its theoretical assumptions and pedagogical practices.

Validation of the Student Religiosity Questionnaire

The aim of the present study was to confirm the validity of the Student Religiosity Questionnaire, an instrument compiled to measure religiosity of students at the high school level. The findings indicate that the SRQ is a valid and reliable measure of religious principles and religious practices for a representative sample of Israeli national-religious high school students.

Two different education structures in Israel and social integration

Summary This study deals with the issue of social integration as affected by two different educational structures which exist within the Israeli educational system. Integration was assumed to occur as a result of change in the cognitive, affective and behavioural components of students’ attitudes. Two hundred and thirty five ninth‐grade students, enrolled in two integrative junior high schools and two regular high schools, responded to a questionnaire which included items focusing around the areas of ‘social attitudes’ and ‘social integration’. Univariate ANOVA results indicate that the integrative junior high school home‐room is significantly more conducive to ‘social integration’ than the regular high school home‐room. No significant differences, however, are indicated between the two educational structures for ‘social attitudes’. The results of the study demonstrate the advantageousness of the heterogeneous home‐room found in the junior high school as opposed to the homogeneous home‐room situation in t...

Social Orientation of Students in the Israeli State High School System

In this study, we focused on the relationship between schools differing in their ideologies, beliefs, and environments and studentssocial orientations. Three research instruments, each examining different social orientations, were administered to 331 11 th-grade students attending a random sample of national-religious and national-secular high schools in the Israeli state educational system. The results indicated that students in the national-religious sector had a more conservative social orientations profile than national-secular sector students, who tended to have more liberal and optimistic social orientations

Religiosity of Students in the Israeli National‐Religious Comprehensive High School

This study examined the religiosity of students studying in a representative sample of seventeen high schools, divided into two categories based on degree of comprehensiveness. Four factors, namely, openness versus selectivity in student intake, student oriented curriculum versus school oriented curriculum, flexible versus inflexible student placement, and social integration‐‐all yielded from a questionnaire specially compiled for this research and administered to the headmasters of the seventeen high schools in the sample‐‐served as the criteria of comprehensiveness. In addition 531 eleventh grade students in the seventeen schools responded to a questionnaire specially compiled to tap two significant areas of religiosity, namely, religious practices and religious principles. Analysis of the data indicates that the four factors of comprehensiveness are unidimensional and cumulative, thus forming a hierarchical model of comprehensiveness. Further analyses indicate that students in high schools typified by ...