Why We’re Sharing our Instrument for Measuring Social Connectedness

Social connection is a fundamental, universal human need, encompassing the structure of our personal networks, the ways in which we rely on others for support and the quality of our relationships. Our connections to others help us build a sense of who we are and to whom we belong, and scientists have increasingly come to appreciate the ways in which social connectedness is a critical facet of our physical and emotional well-being.

In 2022, the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE), housed at George Washington University, was awarded a research grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation to study Shabbat dinner and social connectedness. The study, a research-practice partnership with OneTable and supported by additional funds from the Jim Joseph Foundation and Jewish Federations of North America’s BeWell initiative, seeks to learn how Jewish engagement activities can contribute to building belonging and mitigating loneliness.

CASJE was inspired to develop this project for several reasons: We wanted to work closely with partners to develop a more robust framework for conceptualizing and measuring the goals and outcomes of Jewish engagement activities; we wanted to test new ways of understanding Jewish practice that centered shared experiences rather than just individual perspectives; and we wanted to contribute to a larger national conversation about loneliness. We deliberately designed our study so that our findings can help other Jewish and civic organizations asking similar questions gain a clearer picture of the social worlds of their own constituents and better understand their needs.

To that end, with the quantitative phase of our data collection complete, we are happy to share the survey instrument we developed to help us understand and measure social connectedness, along with a short guide for nonprofit leaders that shares more about how the survey questions were developed and tested and how to think about adapting the survey instrument for use in other contexts.

We believe our survey instrument and similar tools can be adapted for use by Jewish engagement leaders to gain insight into connectedness, belonging and well-being in support of their program goals and constituent needs. In sharing these, we want to provide the field with a set of validated scales — some new, some adapted — to measure social connectedness, which we see as a key facet of Jewish engagement. We also want to share our own theories of what Jewish engagement is and what it is for, so they can be contested and improved. Finally, we want to contribute to a culture in which we share tools for measurement across organizations, and help non-specialists think about how to adapt existing tools for measuring their own goals.

read the full blog on eJewish Philanthropy

Arielle Levites is the managing director of the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE), housed at George Washington University.

Gage Gorsky is an interdisciplinary researcher and evaluator completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University.