Search results for: Cultural transmission

One fissure in the social scientific study of contemporary American Jews involves how scholars understand the relationship between the individual and the shared or social realm. In this essay I contrast a more normative, tradition-oriented approach to studying American Jews and their Jewishness exemplified by Sylvia Barack Fishman to the person-centered, meaning-oriented, navigational approach I employ. Our contrasting approaches reflect different views about what it means to “transmit Jewish culture to the next generation.”