“I Can’t Picture Myself Going to College Next Year”: How the Gap Year in Israel Unsettles the American Jewish Middle-Class Educational Continuum, and How It Doesn’t

Abstract American Jewish teenagers go to high school and, outside of the yeshivish and hasidic communities, almost all of them continue on to college. But some of them spend a gap year in Israel along this middle-class, high-school-to-college educational continuum. In what ways does the year in Israel unsettle this continuum? This study explores this question drawing on students’ own narratives about their experiences, as reported to the researcher in the middle of their gap year, aiming not at empirical generalization but at analytical generalization, i.e., illuminating some of the issues and tensions within that experience. The study first outlines four qualifications that temper the claim of disruption: (1) we should be cautious about unintended implications of the term “disruption”; (2) students themselves emphasized continuity over change; (3) some of the personal growth that students experienced, such as increased independence, is expected and developmentally appropriate for emerging adults; and (4) the study found little evidence, within the sample, of students of adopting extreme religious changes. The study then takes some initial steps toward a theoretical framework for the gap year by identifying four ways in which the gap year does seem to unsettle some students’ perspectives. First, some students reported a change in their sense of belonging within Israeli society. Second, some reported a shift in their political views. Third, participants described a critical perspective on the high-pressure, achievement-driven academic culture of American schooling. Finally, some students seemed to be reconsidering middle-class norms around career and life trajectories. While these disruptions may not lead to dramatic detours from the established educational path—the evidence within this study does not suggest that they do—they do seem to provide some students with new frameworks for thinking about their education and aspirations. The study thus provides an important set of questions for parents and educators as they support students before, during and after their gap year in Israel.