Is giving up traditional religious culture part of the price to be paid for acquiring higher education? Adaptation of academic Western culture by Jewish Israeli University students of Middle Eastern origin

Abstract

This research was designed to investigate whether the Middle Eastern student feels that attaining the status of a “Western modern man” is incompatible with maintaining a traditional, religious way of life. In 1980, a representative sample of the Jewish University student population (N = 1250) responded to a questionnaire aimed at measuring religious attitudes, beliefs and practices. The students of Middle Eastern origin proved to be more religious than their Western counterparts, however their feeling about themselves is that not only are they less religious than their parents and grandparents but that they are less religious than they themselves have previously been. This feeling stemmed from their having discarded or having become lax in the carrying out of some of the more extreme religious practices even though they still maintain many of the same religious practices, attitudes and beliefs as their forefathers.

The degree of religiosity, both of the Middle Eastern students and their Western counterparts, is strongly influenced by the home, the high school attended and youth movement membership, with the former two having a stronger influence on the Western student and the latter having a stronger influence on the Eastern student.

The findings show that though there is some loosening of certain extreme practices on the part of the Eastern student, there is no revolt against home or tradition and the student has found the way to the “new life” without breaking off from the “old ways” of the parental culture.