Beyond Borders: Glimpsing the Underlying Purposes of Day School Education in the Midst of a Pandemic

ABSTRACT This paper examines data gathered from Jewish day school students in North America, Europe and Argentina about their experiences of remote schooling during the first 4 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data report on student access to technology, student satisfaction with the remote-learning pedagogies their schools employed, students’ feelings about what they gained from this experience, and how Judaic studies and general studies compared when delivered remotely. The paper provides an opportunity to probe cultural and structural differences between day school education in different cultural contexts and especially the differences between more communitarian and more individualistic school orientations.