Abstract
In many religious education classrooms, the meaning of a sacred text is treated as something stable and authoritative. A teacher’s job is to transmit that meaning to students. This study reports on a year-long intervention conducted in a seventh grade Hebrew Bible classroom in which students were asked to find their own meaning in the biblical text. The study found that religious text classrooms can offer a unique opportunity to support positive youth development when an effective interpretive community is created.
Highlights
Positive Youth Development theory posits that there are ways to support youth transition into healthy adulthood and that youths’ environments have a significant role to play in that process (Bronfenbrenner 1979; King 2008)
This study examines a Jewish sacred text classroom from a different perspective
We know text discussion can be a canvas for exploration of the most significant issues in readers’ lives
Summary
Positive Youth Development theory posits that there are ways to support youth transition into healthy adulthood and that youths’ environments have a significant role to play in that process (Bronfenbrenner 1979; King 2008). In its focus on environment, the field of PYD includes a growing body of research that looks at how religious life can facilitate PYD (see, e.g., Arnett 2008; King 2008; Mariano and Damon 2008). King (2008), for example, proposed a conceptual model for how religion can be a catalyst for PYD. She offered three dimensions: the ideological context, the social context, and the transcendent context. The ideological context is the beliefs, values and morals that help a young person to generate a sense of meaning, order and identity. The social context is the community in which a young person performs religious practice. The transcendent context, King explains, can help a young person build a sense of self-worth.
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