JEFFREY SCHOCHET, TAKING CENTER: A MORAL PORTRAIT

Author: Levingston Judd  

Publisher: Routledge Ltd

ISSN: 0034-4087

Source: Religious Education, Vol.99, Iss.4, 2004-0, pp. : 385-403

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

Previous Menu Next

Abstract

This article, based on field research, considers how an adolescent graduate of a New York Jewish day school constructs his moral identity now that he is in the larger setting of a large public high school in metropolitan New York. Jeffrey Schochet (a pseudonym), the subject of this article, wrestles with moral issues throughout his school day, defying conventional stereotypes about adolescent apathy. This article identifies three moral outlooks,“Permissive,”“Connected,”and“Standard-Bearing.”A“standard-bearer,”Jeffrey upholds a sense of duty, and he seeks to fulfill the traditional social roles of a male in his community. This research stands at the confluence of research on adolescence, moral education, religious education, and American Jewish sociology, focusing on questions of meaning and tradition.