From Yeshiva to Academia: The Argumentative Writing Characteristics of Ultra-Orthodox Male Students
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From Yeshiva to Academia: The Argumentative Writing Characteristics of Ultra‑Orthodox Male Students Ehud Tsemach1 · Anat Zohar1 Accepted: 10 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This study compares the argumentative writing characteristics of students from different sociocultural backgrounds. We focused on Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) students, educated in a segregated religious school for boys (yeshiva), who are now attempting to integrate in secular higher education in Israel. To better understand the unique characteristics of this population, we reviewed 92 essays written by Haredi students, and compared them with 76 essays by public education (PE) graduates. Our analysis was based on the cognitive and sociocultural perspectives of argumentation. Both bottom-up and top-down criteria were used to elicit the argumentative writing characteristics either emerging from the data or based on existing theories. Our primary findings indicate that Haredi students have distinct argumentative characteristics, including the use of more complex and dialectic arguments and unique persuasive tactics. These findings are discussed in light of previous research on yeshiva learning methods and recommendations are provided for adjusting the existing higher education curricula to suit both PE and Haredi students. Keywords Argumentation · Persuasive writing · Socio-scientific issues · Sociocultural · Ultra-Orthodox
1 Introduction The research of argumentation in education has expanded significantly in recent decades, with new perspectives shedding light on its various aspects (Erduran et al. 2015; Newell et al. 2011; Schwarz and Baker 2016). Much of the research is focused on promoting argumentation among students (Newell et al. 2011; Zohar and Nemet 2002). Others investigate the argumentative discussions between * Ehud Tsemach [email protected] Anat Zohar [email protected] 1
School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
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students and the social context of argumentation (Asterhan and Schwarz 2016). Still others explore the connections between argumentation and various individual traits, such as epistemic beliefs, prior knowledge, or motivation (Asterhan and Schwarz 2016; Erduran et al. 2015). The present study focuses on the argumentative characteristics of socio-scientific essays by students from different sociocultural backgrounds. This point of view has received relatively little attention in literature, and we think it can promote the discussion of argumentation in education in general (Asterhan and Schwarz 2016; Newell et al. 2011; Zeidler et al. 2019). We concentrated on members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, also called Haredim or Haredi Jews, who represent a sizable minority in Israeli society. Haredim follow a strict religious code, and remain culturally autonomous and relatively segregated from Western culture and the rest of Jewish-Israeli society (Brown 2017). Haredi men are the only group in Isra
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