“We are trying to be a multicultural family...” – dualistic transmission of cultural heritage (a research report)

In this article, intercultural education in a mixed family (in Catholic-Jewish marriages) is explored. In particular, my focus is on the construction of various secular and religious patterns of bicultural family life and the possible forms and content of intergenerational family transmission in the adult generation of Jews. The research conducted in 2018–2022 was based on the biographical method – a total of 15 in-depth interviews were carried out. In the article, only a part of a broader project is presented. The biographies of four women of Jewish origin are explored – three of them are representatives of the third post-war generation. All of them try to combine ethnic and dualistic education, due to the type of bicultural marriage or the attitude to the dominant culture. The analytical part is a short reconstruction of the type of family origin, self-identification, cultural definition of one’s own family and opinions regarding the transmission of the Jewish heritage of each woman. Statements of the participants of the research about the ways of celebrating double holidays are collected in a table. The narrators create a culturally open type of their own family and in one case a culturally declared type (according to Alicja Szerląg’s classification).