Societal values in Jewish state religious and state secular schools in Israel

The Israeli Jewish educational system offers mandatory religious and heritage education specially tailored to the specific needs of the different population sectors comprising Israeli society. The numerically largest sectors in the Israeli population may be described as state religious and state secular. In the present study, a questionnaire designed to examine the central societal values, namely Jewish identity, Jewish tradition, Jewish peoplehood, humanism and universalism, was administered to 84 eleventh grade (17-year-old) students in Israeli state religious and state secular high schools. Results of the study indicate that, while students in the state religious high school hold significantly more intense attitudes towards Jewish identity, Jewish peoplehood and Jewish tradition, students in the state secular high school exhibited significantly more intense attitudes towards humanism and universalism. The results of the study were explained in light of the different emphases characterizing religious and heritage education studied in state religious and state secular high schools and the resulting differences in the intensity of the influence of religiosity or secularity on the formation of societal values of students in the two educational sectors.