Communal Education Research Articles

State of burns management in Africa: Challenges and solutions

IntroductionUnderstand the availability of human resources, infrastructure and medical equipment and perceived improvement helps to address interventions to improve burn care. MethodsOnline survey covering human resources, infrastructure, and medical equipment of burn centers as well as perceived challenges and points for improvement. The survey was distributed in English and French via snowball method. Descriptive statistics and AI-based technique random forest analysis was applied to identify determinants for a reduction of the reported mortality rate. Results271 questionnaires from 237 cities in 40 African countries were analyzed. 222 (81.9 %) from countries with a very low Human Development Index (HDI) (4th quartile). The majority (154, 56.8 %) of all responses were from tertiary health care facilities. In only 18.8 % (n = 51) therapy was free of charge for the patients. The majority (n = 131, 48.3 %) had between 1 and 3 specialist doctors (n = 131, 48.3 %), 1 to 3 general doctors (n = 138, 50.9 %) and more than 4 nurses (n = 175, 64.6 %). A separate burn ward was available in 94 (34.7 %) centers. Regular skin grafting was performed in 165 (39.1 %) centers. Random forest-based analysis revealed a significant association between HDI (feature importance: 0.38) and mortality. The most important reason for poor outcome was perceived late presentation (212 institutions, 78.2 %). The greatest perceived potential for improvement was introduction of intensive care units (229 institutions, 84.5 %), and prevention or education (227 institutions, 83.7 %). InterpretationA variety of factors, including a low HDI, delayed hospital presentation e.g. due to prior care by non-physicians and lack of equipment seem to worsen the outcome. Introduction of an intensive care unit and communal education are perceived to be important steps in improving health care in burns.

(Dis)continuity of African Indigenous knowledge

What role does Indigenous knowledge play in the lives of contemporary Africans? To investigate this question, we visited three communities in Ghana—rural, peri-urban, and urban—where we interviewed community members involved in communal education. Contrary to the literature on the decline of Indigenous knowledge, we find that Indigenous knowledge, practices, and institutions are resilient across all contexts. Traditional leaders continue to play a significant role as stewards of Indigenous knowledge despite the impact of colonization, rural–urban migration, and globalization. However, Indigenous knowledge does not exist in a vacuum. It coexists and competes with many knowledge systems, inculcating in Africans multiple identities and consciousness. We discuss the implication of our findings and explain why there is a need for Africans to better integrate their multiple consciousnesses and different lived realities.

Communal Education vs. The True Self Among Graduates of the Kibbutz Educational System

This article examines the dialectic between the principles and application of communal education of the kibbutz movement and that of Winnicott’s insights of the true self. The true self is characterized by its attention towards inner mental life and its demands to fulfill its needs. The communal kibbutz education prioritized the collective needs as supreme. Many communal values were pursued in the approach and education of young members of the kibbutz in order that they prioritize the needs of the group over that of the individual. This educational approach taught young members, to attend much less to their inner emotional needs and adapt them to the needs of the community. In this article, we attempt to address, elaborate on, understand these issues and their underlying motivations needs.

Experiences of Parents with Young Children within Child Friendly Communities

본 연구는 영유아기 자녀를 둔 부모의 지역사회 육아 친화환경에 관한 경험을 심층적으로 분석하는 데 목적이 있다. 이를 위해 C도 3곳의 영유아교육기관에 재원 중인 만 3에서 5세 사이 유아기 자녀를 둔 부모를 연구대상으로 포커스 그룹면담과 개별 심층면담을 통해 분석자료를 수집하였다. 분석결과, 첫째, 영유아기 자녀를 둔 부모들은 지역사회 육아 친화환경을 건강·의료지원환경, 안전주거지원환경, 양육재정지원환경, 공동양육지원환경, 부모-자녀 놀이문화지원환경, 그리고 학습공동체 교육지원환경으로 인식하였다. 그리고 둘째, 이러한 육아 친화환경 구축을 위해서는 지자체 및 국가적 차원에서의 의료·보건, 주거, 양육, 놀이문화, 교육 등 육아를 위한 통합적지원시스템의 활성화가 요구된다고 인식하였다. 이 연구의 결과는 영유아의 육아친화환경 구축을 위한 지역사회 및 국가 연구를 위한 기초자료로 활용될 뿐만 아니라, 관련 연구의 지평을 넓힐 것으로 기대된다.This study examines in depth the experiences of parents with young children that live in child friendly communities. For this purpose, data was collected through focus group interviews and individual in-depth interviews with parents of young children aged between 3 and 5, who attend daycare centers and kindergartens in C city. As a result, first, parents recognized child friendly communities as an important factor for living along with: overal health and medical care, safe residential living, financial support from parents, effective co-parenting, parent-child play culture, and communal education. Second, parents recognized that demanded medical, health, residential environment, parenting, play culture, and communal educational are all important factors that contrivute to establishing child friendly environments and communities. The results of this study are expected not only to be used as basic data for community and national research to help establish child-rearing-friendly environments for young children, but also to expand the horizons of research related to child-rearing-friendly environments.

Rethinking the moral in narrating trauma: Ethnographic insights on clinical reasoning.

This article explores the moral dimensions of the clinical narration of suffering in a highly political context. Based on an ethnographic analysis of psychotherapists' discussions of a clinical case related to the Israeli evacuation from Gaza, I illustrate how the care providers navigate competing moral logics while explaining the reasons for the patient's experience. Capturing moments of the simultaneous appearance of different explanatory models, informed by contradictory moral grammars, during the process of clinical reasoning allowed me to obtain a complex and nuanced picture of social reality in which the experience of the patient simultaneously appeared as both a success and a failure of communal education. The ethnographic observation and analysis of clinical reasoning challenge the assumed connection between practitioners' ideological identifications and their narration of suffering, and allow moving beyond the idea of coherent moral subjects who act according to a priori moral values informed by political ideology. This perspective is particularly significant for the field of traumatic suffering because it questions the moral grammar of trauma narratives that imply unambiguous and idealized distinctions between victims, perpetrators, and witnesses, revealing the complex dynamics of suffering and caring.

Communal Education in the Closed Kibbutz Community as a Reflection of Narcissistic Parenthood

This article attempts to highlight the existence of mental disorders resulting from narcissistic relationships as reflected in the system of communal education that was practiced in Israeli kibbutzim until the 1980s. The narcissistic disorder is characterized by an emotional short-sightedness, a false self, developed as a defence against feelings of worthlessness, and unique behavioural patterns in interaction with others. Narcissists demand much attention, recognition and closeness on the part of their children and spouses, while they themselves lack empathy and find it difficult to respond to subjectivity in others. The spotlight is shone on victims who are affected by narcissistic parents, as well as similar cases of children raised in the system of communal education on kibbutzim. A parallel is drawn between the narcissistic adult and the communal education system which, in adherence to an ideology, fails to see the differential needs of each child and satisfy them. Such children suffer from emotional disorders as a result of the demand made of them to conform to a specific educational model that was in keeping with the times. Three areas are cited in which children brought up in the system experienced deprivation: nights spent with no adult in attendance; conformity in dress and attitude to religion and tradition; and suppression of personal talents and aptitudes. Recommendations are made for treating victims of narcissistic parents and children reared in the system of communal education.

80 Minor Burns in Infants: What has Changed During the Last 15 Years?

Abstract Introduction Infants are prone to unintentional minor burns. Caregivers play a key role in prevention and first aid. So, updating communal burn-prevention education programs according to time-related social changes is of importance. Aim of the present study was to analyze features of minor burns in infants who were referred to our burn center in the last 15 years. Methods Subjects were 973 infants(1-24months) with minor burns who were treated at our burn center between 2005 and 2019. Subjects were divided into two subgroups; groupI: referrals between 2005 and 2014(n=465) and groupII: referrals between 2015 and 2019(n=508). Data collected for each case were age; sex; burn-cause; extent of burns; affected major body-sites; environment in which injury occurred; first-aid method used by the caregiver; referral history (time interval between injury and referral (TIIR) and other hospitals before arriving at our center). Socioeconomic status was investigated with social-security status; home-types and methods of home-heating. Results Median age was 1±0,2 both in groupI and in groupII; male/female ratio was 0,96/1 in groupI and it was 1,07/1 in groupII. Mean TBSA burned was 2,74±0,12%(min:0,1,max:18) in groupI and it was 2,22±0,11(min:0,1,max:18) in groupII. Most common burn-cause was scalds in both groups (groupI: n=351;75,5%, groupII: n=405;79,8%) (p˃,05). Chemical burns slightly increased, flame burns decreased in groupII (p˂,05). Hands continued to be the most common affected major body-site (n=334;34,5%)(p˃,05).Home was the most common environment in which injury occurred (groupI: n=428;92%, groupII: n=487;95,9%) (p˃,05). Tap water was the favorite first-aid method (groupI: n=366;78,9%; groupII: n=411;80,9%) (p˃,05). But tendency to herbal and/or unreasoning first-aid methods increased in groupII (groupI: n=10;2,2%, groupII: n=47;9,3%)(p˂,05). TIIR was under 3 days for 820 cases (84,3%)(p˃,05). Rates of unmediated referral to our burn-center were higher in groupII (groupI:n=221;47,5%,groupII:n=303;59,7%)(p<,05). Most infants were in civil social-security-system, with an increased number of private-insurance in groupII (groupI: n=12;25,7%,groupII: n=29;74,3%)(p<,05). Most lived at centrally heated homes(n=926; 95,2%), and number of infants who lived at stove-heated homes decreased in group II (groupI:n=31; 6,7%,groupII:n=16; 3,1%)(p˂,05). Conclusions Our results revealed that socioeconomic status has improved, direct referrals to burn center increased in the last 5 years. Unfortunately usage of herbal and unreasoning first aid methods also increased in the same period. Future communal education programs for caregivers should emphatically continue to focus on precautions against threats at homes and correct first-aid methods should be urged.

The Arc of the Covenant: Jewish Educational Success on the Upper Mississippi by Earl Schwartz

Reviewed by: The Arc of the Covenant: Jewish Educational Success on the Upper Mississippi by Earl Schwartz Laura Yares (bio) The Arc of the Covenant: Jewish Educational Success on the Upper Mississippi. By Earl Schwartz. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019. x + 152 pp. "To a disinterested observer," wrote Isaac Leeser in the January 1844 edition of the Occident and American Jewish Advocate, "the state of the American Israelites must present itself as anomalous in the highest degree. There are congregations scattered over an immense surface of country, from the snows of Canada to the tropical heats of Guiana [sic], and one community knows absolutely nothing of the state and the wants of the other." While some "congregations" are today relatively familiar, having been featured extensively within American Jewish historiography as well as in American popular culture more broadly, in the case of others Leeser's description remains, perhaps, still apt. Earl Schwartz's The Arc of the Covenant offers a valuable account of one of these lesser chronicled communities, that of St. Paul, Minnesota, through a study of its Jewish educational institutions. To investigate the contours of regional Jewish experiences, particularly outside major metropolitan centers, the history of Jewish education offers the opportunity to examine how national paradigms have met local realities. The Arc of the Covenant offers an institutional study examining the surprising successes and the challenges of community-sponsored Jewish learning in the upper Mississippi during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Written in part as a historical chronicle in its own right and in part to inform strategic planning for the future of Jewish education in St. Paul, The Arc of the Covenant straddles the domains of local history and communal policy making. The historical chapters in Part I narrate the surprising successes of St. Paul's communal education initiatives, an account that focuses on fruitful efforts to build and maintain a community sponsored Talmud Torah in the twentieth century. Schwartz's narrative is most compelling when he highlights the local story of St. Paul against national patterns in American Jewish education, reflecting, for example, on how the initiatives of Samson Benderly, conceived in New York City, flourished in this quite different locale. The midsize, midwestern setting, Schwartz surmises, made uniquely possible a regional educational collaboration that brought together "school, shul and community" (31). Chapter two, focusing on the last quarter of the twentieth century, offers an analysis of the dynamics that Schwartz sees as contributing to this successful collaborative effort, inclusive of factors specific to the regional demographics of St. Paul as well as national ideological trends such as increased attentiveness to Israel and Israel education in the aftermath of the Six Day War. The third chapter offers a historical overview of [End Page 474] institutional change during the first decades of the twenty-first century, a less than sanguine tale of decreasing Jewish population in St. Paul combined with a rising average population age, leading to a decline in Jewish enrollment in the community-sponsored Talmud Torah. At the end of his historical account, Schwartz is thus forced to conclude that despite the twentieth-century successes it enjoyed, "a communal school cannot produce a multigenerational, Jewishly knowledgeable and concerned community out of whole cloth" (113). In its place, congregational education, as well as the Jewish day schools planted in Minneapolis in the latter decades of the twentieth century, have taken up the Jewish educational baton. Chapters four through seven, focusing on the current strategic planning progress for St. Paul's communal Jewish educational institutions in the light of this historical narrative, will principally be of interest to scholars invested in the contemporary Jewish educational landscape, as well as to educational practitioners and policy makers. The chief limitation of this study for students and teachers of the American Jewish historical experience lies in its top-down approach to Jewish educational history. This is overwhelmingly an institutional study, and its chief protagonists are the administrators, policy makers and benefactors of the educational institutions it surveys. Absent from the book are, arguably, its primary subjects: the students, parents, and classroom teachers who animated the enterprise. Schwartz offers little insight into the ways that the titular "covenant" was made...

Εκ δυσμών το φως; Εξελληνισμός και οριενταλισμός στην Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία (μέσα 19ου–αρχές 20ου αιώνα)(Χάρης Εξερτζόγλου) [Light from the West? Hellenism and Orientalism in the Ottoman Empire (mid-nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century)] by Haris Exertzoglou

Reviewed by: Εκ δυσμών το φως; Εξελληνισμός και οριενταλισμός στην Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία (μέσα 19ου–αρχές 20ου αιώνα)(Χάρης Εξερτζόγλου) [Light from the West? Hellenism and Orientalism in the Ottoman Empire (mid-nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century)] by Haris Exertzoglou Elektra Kostopoulou (bio) Haris Exertzoglou (Χάρης Εξερτζόγλου), Εκ δυσμών το φως; Εξελληνισμός και οριενταλισμός στην Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία (μέσα 19ου–αρχές 20ου αιώνα) [Light from the West? Hellenism and Orientalism in the Ottoman Empire (mid-nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century)]. Athens: Ekdoseis tou Eikostou Protou. 2015. Pp. 247. Cloth €19. Almost four decades after the publication of the late Hayden White’s Metahistory (1975), Haris Exertzoglou’s engaging study reminds us of intellectual history’s endless potential to capture the nature of historical writing. In both format and content, the book mirrors itself structurally in its own deliberations. The book is divided into seven consecutive chapters, all of which revolve around the same central issue: the intellectual vista of Greek Orthodox communities in the late Ottoman Empire, as shaped by their understandings of East and West. Exertzoglou’s protagonists do not identify fully with either category. Their narratives form acts of translation that borrow from the abovementioned polarity in order to negate it de facto. Hence, they try to define themselves by creating an original in-between space of intellectual existence. At times, they wrestle with external dogmatisms. At times, they produce their own. The resulting tension is the central focus of the book, which discusses modernity as the expression—and the synthesis—of imperfect divisions. Already in his Prologue, Exertzoglou reminds us that Greek Orthodox thought was an integral part of the late Ottoman Empire. This approach challenges the isolationist tendencies that continue to characterize Modern Greek Studies. Moreover, it reveals that the exclusive association of Ottoman history with Islam originates in—as well as reproduces—problematic ideological, methodological, and political stereotypes. Given that the author himself meticulously traces the intellectual entanglements of the existing literature, the limited length of this review cannot do the book justice. Suffice it to say that reading Exertzoglou’s work side by side with the classic contributions of Selim Deringil (2000) and Ussama Makdisi (2002)—to mention only two indicative [End Page 404] works that resonate with Exertzoglou’s analysis—affirms that Ottoman intellectual history should neither focus merely on Islam nor merely on the central dynasty or the capital city. This main premise becomes clear in the Introduction and Chapter 1, which examine the intersection between nationalism, colonialism, and empire in the Greek Orthodox intellectual universe. The narrative focuses on the tension between East and West, as understood by the book’s protagonists, namely, Greek Orthodox intellectuals. To them, the West was identified with progress, industrialization, modern infrastructure, and the secularization of education. Did their anti-Western tendencies automatically imply a black-and-white contrast between modernity and tradition? Quite to the contrary, Exertzoglou argues. For the book’s protagonists, this very tension became modernity. In other words, they tried to reconcile Western progress with their own understanding of tradition. By implication, they did not accept Western modernity as universal; rather, they proposed that the integration of Greek values with Western progress produced the only version of modernity with universal value. Building on the above argument, the second chapter discusses the example of material culture along the lines of binary perceptions; in other words, it focuses on the objects, resources, and other ponderable manifestations of East versus West. Western modernity centered on technological innovation and industrial capitalism. Hence, it established an uneven relationship with the East in the abovementioned spheres. Far from remaining the passive terrain for Western expansion, however, some Greek Orthodox communities and urban strata found a new sense of agency in the production and theorization of material culture. They claimed a central role in communal education, defending a convenient hybrid of material progress and traditional values. By doing so, they transformed—without erasing—the traditional role played by religion in educating the nation. Greek Orthodox intellectuals equated the study of Greek letters, under the guidance of urban middle-classes, with an inner-civilizing mission for Ottoman lands. They presented antiquity, in particular, as proof of their own cultural superiority over the West, despite the fact that they drew inspiration from the West’s own appropriation of ancient Greece. As discussed in Chapters 4 and 5...

Od pedagogiki kolektywu do pedagogiki kolektywizującej. Idee wychowawcze Antona Makarenki w świetle filozofii i pedagogiki wspólnotowości

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the continuing relevance of some elements of Anton Makarenko’s pedagogical thought. My other aim is to reinterpret those elements in the light of contemporary theories of commonality and communal education. The category that is reinterpreted in relation to the modern theories of the production of the common and the new forms of being together that thus produced, is Makarenko’s notion of the “collective”. Based upon this, I propose an idea of a collectivizing pedagogy, that is a remedy for the current neoliberal delegitimization of all forms of common identity, and the latter’s effects such as incapability of imagining (and consequently teaching about) the possibility of a communal, solidary action.

The Westermarck Hypothesis and the Israeli Kibbutzim: Reconciling Contrasting Evidence.

The case of the communal education system in the Israeli kibbutzim is often considered to provide conclusive support for Westermarck's (1891) assertion regarding the existence of evolutionary inbreeding avoidance mechanisms in humans. However, recent studies that have gone back to the kibbutzim seem to provide contrasting evidence and reopen the discussion regarding the case of the kibbutzim and inbreeding avoidance more generally (Lieberman & Lobel, 2012; Shor & Simchai, 2009). In this article, I reassess the case of the kibbutzim, reevaluating the findings and conclusions of these recent research endeavors. I argue that the differences between recent research reports largely result from conceptual and methodological differences and that, in fact, these studies provide insights that are more similar than first meets the eye. I also suggest that we must reexamine the common assumption that the kibbutzim serve as an ideal natural experiment for examining the sources of incest avoidance and the incest taboo. Finally, I discuss the implications of these studies to the longstanding debate over the Westermarck hypothesis and call for a synthetic theoretical framework that produces more precise predictions and more rigorous empirical research designs.

The study for possibility of using novels in communal education

The study for possibility of using novels in communal education

Analysis of customer mindset change and accounting practice of garbage bank as medium of edupreneurship

This study aims to determine: (1) whether there is a change in individuals' mindset associated with the existence of garbage bank and (2) the accounting practices in Garbage Bank of Badegan (GBB). Garbage bank is the manifestation of public awareness to actively address the issue of garbage management. Thus, garbage bank is a medium for communal education and entrepreneurship. Its concept basically adopts the banking concept. It is not the money which is saved but garbage. This research was conducted at the Gemah Ripah GBB in Bantul, Indonesia by distributing questionnaires to customers. Change of mindset is viewed from environmental and the economic standpoint. Data processing employed the pair sample t-test. The results showed that there was a change in the public mindset before and after joining GBB. Garbage is no longer burned or thrown into the river, but it is managed into value added products.

A Novel Conceptual Model of Environmental Communal Education: Content Analysis Based on Distance Education Approach.

Environmental education as a learning process increases people's knowledge and awareness about the environment. Although in some countries, the Environmental Communal Education (ECE) is the core of the environmental education by formal and informal organizations and groups, but, it has not clarified the meaning of the ECE’s concept. Therefore the aim of this study was to scientific clarification of the ECE and to develop conceptual model by using the distance education approach. In this study to concept clarification of the ECE, five-step method of Norris was used. Also, a summative content analysis approach is used to interpret meaning from the content of text data. Findings from the content analysis of ECE plotted as a conceptual model. The results of the content analysis led to the extraction of meaning units, sub-codes and the main themes. According to data explication 6 themes extracted. They were Condition-based, Methods-based, Learner-based, Concern-based, Workgroup-based, and Field-based. On the base of themes and operational definition the Hexa-based model of the ECE developed. According to extracted operational definition and the Hexa-based model of the ECE, the diversity of the target population and educational content, it seems the most appropriate teaching methods, are the distance education methods.

Religious Poetry as a Vehicle for Social Control in Africa: The Case of Bakossi Incantatory Poetry

Religious poetry is generally considered the fruit of a people's long reflection on their relationship with their gods, with the ancestors, and with the partly seen and unseen universe. It is used to celebrate events in the life of the individual and the community, to express fellowship, and as a powerful means of communication. Thus, religious poetry is an integral element of a people's heritage. In this paper, I intend to present some forms of religious poetry, which are found among the Bakossi people of Cameroon, in order to show how magically-oriented formulaic expressions are used in order to maintain adherence to the normative order of society. The point I intend to make is that the incantatory form of religious poetry, was, and still is, used among the Bakossi people of Cameroon, as well as in other parts of rural Africa in terms of individual and communal education.

Incest Avoidance, the Incest Taboo, and Social Cohesion: Revisiting Westermarck and the Case of the Israeli Kibbutzim

During the past 50 years, a consensus has been forming around Edward Westermarck's idea that incest avoidance results from an aversion that develops when individuals are brought up in propinquity. The argument here presented counters this emerging consensus. Reexamining the case of the Israeli kibbutzim, the authors show that individuals who grew up in the kibbutzim's communal education system were in fact often attracted to their peers, and only rarely did they develop sexual aversion toward these peers. This article offers an alternative explanation to the problem of incest avoidance and the incest taboo, one that brings sociological factors back into the picture.

‘Social movements of educators’ influencing the environment in the sphere of formal education: the Education Department of the ‘Kibbutz Artzi’ (1926–2000) as an example

The uniqueness of the Kibbutz Artzi ‘social movement’ of educators is illustrated and summarized in two articles: (1) The first (previous) article, ‘The Education Department of the ‘Kibbutz Artzi’ as leader of ‘a social movement of educators’ (1926–2000) influencing the environment in the sphere of formal education’ (Journal of Educational Administration and History, 36(1)) described in historical sequence the unique activities in the ‘Kibbutz Artzi’ schools, under the guidance of the education department as a ‘movement of educators’; (2) In this second article we shall analyze these activities by means of the theory regarding social movements, including also the unique features of kibbutz education, and providing tools for the study of other educational and social movements. At the beginning of the 21st century it is possible to sum up briefly the story of the ‘Kibbutz Artzi’ educators’ movement, described in the previous article. It originated in the Gilboa Children’s Society in the twenties, as a practical experiment. The writings of the founding fathers and their collaborators were published in the educational press and in forums of educators. Golan began the process in ‘Kibbutz Artzi’ in the 1930s and 1940s, together with planning and founding the first Shomria secondary institution and instituting its ‘subject method’. In the 1950s and 1960s it was further developed at educators’ conferences and training sessions, and summarized in resolutions regarding both principles and practice, published in the Movement’s press. A process of change and continuity in the elementary ‘societies’ and the secondary ‘institutions’, in their size and unique methods, has been going on since the 1950s. The radical changes and a revival in ‘Kibbutz Artzi’ education theory and practice have occurred in the last two decades, marked by a shifting of collaboration within the national frameworks to collaboration within regional ones. The ups and downs of communal education went hand in hand with general developments: after the climax from the

The progressive and non‐formal principles of Kibbutz education in Israel

The kibbutz ‘communal education’ system was initiated in the Yishuv, the Jewish community, at the end of Ottoman rule in Eretz (pre‐state) Israel (Palestine). Degania, the first kibbutz, was founde...

Communal education

Communal education

Achieving Concensus in Communal Education

At a time when congregational schools were beginning to decline, A Symposium on the Jewish Community School, in the 1965 winter issue of Jewish Education magazine, indicated that these schools could be saved if they would open their admissions policy and change their curricular approach.1 However, it was realized that within a few years no matter what these schools would do, their efforts would be ineffective in combating the decline in birthrate. Just ten years later the minutes of a joint American Association of Jewish Education and American Jewish Committee Conference indicated that congregational schools, with but few exceptions, were beyond recovery. Their only hope was either to merge or become absorbed by the community.2