The unique and the unifying: Children's narratives of cultural differences

Abstract

SUMMARY Pioneering efforts to map relations between religious and secular Jews in Israel, and to foster these relations by arranging encounters between them, usually take place among teenagers and adults. Very few attempts have been made to document and examine the narratives of secularism and religiosity of young children and the institutional attempts to influence those narratives. The purpose of this paper is to examine different narratives and perceptions of religiosity and secularism in the light of an intergroup encounter among children and parents at a school in Jerusalem, Israel. The study examines interrelations, informal relations, and manifestations of tolerance among religious and secular children and parents.