Trinity College professors Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar are embarking on an online national survey of Jewish university and college students. This large-scale study is a follow-up to their successful 2013 online national survey of the worldviews and opinions of all American college students. The focus on college students differentiates the Trinity survey from the Pew Research Center’s recent survey of American Jews, which has been hotly debated in Jewish communities.

“In the light of the interesting exchanges following the Pew report we think this new project may provide an opportunity to test and validate some of the emerging themes as they relate to the next generation of American Jews who are usually missing from household surveys,” says Kosmin, who is with Trinity’s Public Policy and Law Program.

The students will be asked about their Jewish identity, college experiences, family background and opinions on social, religious and political issues. The findings, says Kosmin, will enrich our understanding of trends and patterns and assess how globalization, social media and inter-group mixing reshape the identity and connections of young people today. The topics allow for comparison with other ethnic and religious groups in the U.S. and internationally, with Jewish students in the United Kingdom.

“Our experience is that online research offers the possibility to ask more questions than telephone surveys with young people who are the harbingers of societal change,” says Keysar, also with Trinity’s Public Policy and Law Program. “We’ve offered academic colleagues and Jewish organizations the opportunity to collaborate by adding a few of their own thematic questions to this survey.”

The goal of the student survey is to reach out and capture the diversity of the Jewish community that the Pew survey highlighted. Kosmin and Keysar are appealing to parents and community leaders to encourage all Jewish students to participate in the survey when they receive the link to the questionnaire via email.

The research project was approved by the Trinity College Institutional Review Board (IRB), indicating that it meets the ethical standards for research involving human participants with respect to obtaining informed consent and ensuring confidentiality of participants’ responses. The findings will be made public, and a community conference at Trinity College in Hartford is planned for fall 2014 to discuss the results and their policy implications for the future of the American Jewish community.

To take part in the survey visit http://www.trincoll.edu/Academics/centers/isssc/Documents/ARIS_2013_College%20Students_Sept_25_final_draft.pdf.