“I’m Like a Chameleon”: Coping Strategies Used by Haredi Women Doctoral Students Reconciling Their Religious and Academic Identities

Abstract

This study examined Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) women doctoral students to analyze the shaping of their religious and academic identities, and particularly the coping strategies they use to reconcile them. It is informed by theories on the definition of social and collective identities and the way individuals assimilate upon encountering a new collective, as well as by actual processes of Haredi integration in Israeli academia over the years. The study concludes that in their academic development, these women challenge their traditional social worlds and enter the world of learning, which in their community is exclusively reserved for men.