New Article: Raz et al, Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorders Incidence by Sub-Populations in Israel

Raz, Raanan, Marc G. Weisskopf, Michael Davidovitch, Ofir Pinto, and Hagai Levine. “Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorders Incidence by Sub-Populations in Israel 1992–2009: A Total Population Study.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 45.4 (2015): 1062-1069.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-014-2262-z

 

Abstract
We analyzed data from the Israeli National Insurance Institute (NII). Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) incidence was calculated for all children born in Israel 1992–2009, and by population groups. Overall, 9,109 ASD cases among 2,431,649 children were identified. ASD cumulative incidence by age 8 years increased 10-fold during 2000–2011, from 0.49 % to 0.49 %, while other child disabilities in NII increased only 1.65-fold. There was a consistent increase in ASD incidence with advancing birth cohorts born 1992–2004, stabilizing among those born 2005–2009. ASD rates among Israeli Arabs were substantially lower, and increased about 10 years later than the general population. The findings suggest a role for ASD awareness, accessing of the government benefit, or the way the concept of ASD is perceived.

 
 
 
 

New Article: Arar & Oplatka, Making Sense of Social Justice in Education

Arar, Khalid Husny, and Izhar Oplatka. “Making Sense of Social Justice in Education: Jewish and Arab Leaders’ Perspectives in Israel.” Management in Education (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0892020616631409

 
Abstract

The research aimed to understand the way in which high school principals’ perceptions of social justice (SJ) are implemented in their daily educational work. A qualitative study employed in-depth semi-structured interviews to collect the narratives of two high school principals in Israel – one Arab-Muslim and one Jewish. The interview transcripts underwent comparative holistic analysis to identify their perceptions and daily practice of SJ in their schools. Findings indicated that the principals’ perceptions of SJ were coloured by their national and cultural context, yet they needed strong conviction to integrate these perceptions in their schools, and their efforts to do so were often beset by resistance.

 

 

New book: Khattab et al, Socioeconomic Inequality in Israel

Khattab, Nabil, Sami Miaari, and Haya Stier, eds. Socioeconomic Inequality in Israel. A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

 

 

This volume addresses different aspects and areas of inequality in Israel, a country characterized by high levels of economic inequality, poverty, and social diversity. The book expands on the mechanisms that produce and maintain inequality, and the role of state policies in influencing those mechanisms.

 

Table of Contents

The Correlates of Household Debt in Late Life
Lewin-Epstein, Noah (et al.)
Pages 13-40

Household Inequality and the Contribution of Spousal Correlations
Plaut, Pnina O. (et al.)
Pages 41-57

Religious Schooling, Secular Schooling, and Household Income Inequality in Israel
Kimhi, Ayal (et al.)
Pages 59-72

First-Generation College Students in an Expanded and Diversified Higher Education System: The Case of Israel
Ayalon, Hanna (et al.)
Pages 75-96

Ethno-Religious Hierarchy in Educational Achievement and Socioeconomic Status in Israel: A Historical Perspective
Friedlander, Dov (et al.)
Pages 97-121

Overqualification and Wage Penalties among Immigrants, Native Minorities, and Majority Ethnic Groups
Khattab, Nabil (et al.)
Pages 123-149

The Gender Revolution in Israel: Progress and Stagnation
Mandel, Hadas (et al.)
Pages 153-184

Gender Earnings Gaps in Ethnic and Religious Groups in Israel
Kraus, Vered (et al.)
Pages 185-204

The Role of Peripheriality and Ethnic Segregation in Arabs’ Integration into the Israeli Labor Market
Schnell, Izhak (et al.)
Pages 207-224

Horizontal Inequality in Israel’s Welfare State: Do Arab Citizens Receive Fewer Transfer Payments?
Shalev, Michael (et al.)
Pages 225-252

 

ToC: International Journal of Educational Research 76 (2016); special section on Arabs in Israel

International Journal of Education Research 76 (2016)

Special section on Higher Education in a Transforming Society: The Case of Arabs in Israel; Guest edited by Hanoch Flum and Avi Kaplan

 

Higher education in a transforming society: The case of Arabs in Israel
Pages 89-95
Hanoch Flum, Avi Kaplan

Access to higher education and its socio-economic impact among Bedouin Arabs in Southern Israel
Pages 96-103
Ismael Abu-Saad

English as a gatekeeper: Inequality between Jews and Arabs in access to higher education in Israel
Pages 104-111
Yariv Feniger, Hanna Ayalon

On the meaning of higher education for transition to modernity youth: Lessons from future orientation research of Muslim girls in Israel
Pages 112-119
Rachel Seginer, Sami Mahajna

The paths of ‘return’: Palestinian Israeli women negotiate family and career after the university
Pages 120-128
Lauren Erdreich

The conception of work and higher education among Israeli Arab women
Pages 129-140
Rachel Gali Cinamon, Halah Habayib, Margalit Ziv

Higher education among minorities: The Arab case
Pages 141-146
Alean Al-Krenawi

Lecture: Goldscheider, Ethnic and Religious Diversity in Israel (Berkeley, Feb 4, 2016)

 

Thursday, February 4

PUBLIC LECTURE ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN ISRAEL: Changes, Inequality and the Quality of Life Calvin Goldscheider Ungerleider Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies & Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Brown University 5:30 PM Reception, 6 PM Lecture Warren Room, 295 Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley Please RSVP Here

New Article: Razon, Jews, Bedouins, and the Making of the Secular Israeli

Razon, Na’amah. “Entangled Bodies: Jews, Bedouins, and the Making of the Secular Israeli.” Medical Anthropology (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2016.1138950

 

Abstract

Taking Israel’s National Health Insurance Law as a point of entry, in this article I probe how notions of equality and citizenship, secularism and religion become entangled in the experience of Negev/Naqab Bedouin, who are Palestinian citizens of Israel. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, I show how Jewish citizens have come to represent the secular and modern citizens in the region, while Bedouins, although mandated and claimed by policy and providers to be the ‘same’ and ‘equal’, are always already imagined and characterized as other. Universal healthcare and the daily manner in which biomedicine is practiced in southern Israel provides an avenue for examining the Jewish valences medicine carries in southern Israel, Israel’s boundaries of inclusion, and the connection between biomedicine and secularism.

 

 

 

New Article: Shoshana, The Language of Everyday Racism and Microaggression in the Workplace

Shoshana, Avihu. “The Language of Everyday Racism and Microaggression in the Workplace: Palestinian Professionals in Israel.” Ethnic and Racial Studies (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1081965

 

Abstract

Based on interviews with Palestinian professionals in Jewish organizations in Israel, this article discloses a distinctive practice of ‘everyday racism’ and microaggression – a language of everyday racism. This ‘language of everyday racism’ refers to Hebrew words and expressions that are routinely used by Jews in their mundane conversations and that include the word ‘Arab’ when describing a deficiency or defect, some sort of unsightliness, filth, or general negativity (as in the expression ‘You’re dressed like an Arab woman’). This article not only describes the language of everyday racism as a specific form of everyday racism and microaggression (national microaggression), it also illustrates how this language activates the Palestinian professionals in a reflexive manner. The discussion section describes how the internal dialectic between structure and agency is critical to understanding the language of everyday racism, which in turn acts as a mechanism of the inequality that underlies face-to-face interactions.

 

 

Encyclopedia Article: Peled, Ethnic Democracy

Peled, Yoav. “Ethnic Democracy.” The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Chichester: Wiley, 2016.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118663202.wberen381

Extract

Ethnic democracy is an analytic model meant to describe a form of state that combines majoritarian electoral procedures and respect for the rule of law and individual citizenship rights with the institutionalized dominance of a majority ethnic group over a society. Ethnic democracy consists of two incompatible constitutional principles: liberal democracy, which mandates equal protection of all citizens, and ethnonationalism, which privileges the core ethnic group. Critics of the model have pointed out that the tension between these two contradictory principles causes inherent instability in this form of state. This tension could be overcome, however, and ethnic democracy could be stabilized, if a third constitutional principle, mediating between liberal democracy and ethnic nationalism, were to exist in the political culture.

 

 

 

New Article: Yitzhak-Sade et al, Ethnicity and Immunization Coverage among Schools in Israel

Yitshak-Sade, Maayan, Nadav Davidovitch, Lena Novack, and Itamar Grotto. “Ethnicity and Immunization Coverage among Schools in Israel.” Ethnicity & Health (early view; online first).

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13557858.2015.1068281

 

Abstract
Objective. Recent years have seen a global trend of declining immunization rates of recommended vaccines that is more pronounced among school-age children. Ethnic disparities in child immunization rates have been reported in several countries. We investigated an effect of ethnicity on the vaccination rates of immunizations routinely administered within schools in Israel. Design. Data were collected from the Ministry of Health database regarding immunization coverage for all registered Israeli schools (3736) in the years 2009–2011. Negative binomial regression was used to assess the association between school ethnicity and immunization coverage while controlling for school characteristics. Results. The lowest immunization coverage was found in Bedouin schools (median values of 75.1%, 81.5% and 0% for the first, second and eighth grades, respectively) in 2011. During this year, vaccination coverage in the first and second grades in Jewish schools was 1.51 and 1.35 times higher, respectively, compared to Bedouin schools. In the years 2009 and 2010, no significant increase in risk for lower vaccination rate was observed in Bedouin schools, and children in Arab and Druze schools were more likely to have been vaccinated. Conclusion. The lower vaccination refusal rate found in Bedouin schools supports the hypothesis that difficulties related to accessibility constitute the main problem rather than noncompliance with the recommended vaccination protocol for school-age children, featuring higher socio-economic status groups. Our study emphasizes the importance of identifying, beyond the national-level data, subpopulation groups at risk for non-vaccination. This knowledge is essential to administrative-level policy-makers for the allocation of resources and the planning of intervention programs.

 

 

New Article: Daoud et al, Readiness to Quit Smoking among a Arab-Male Smokers in Israel

Daoud, Nihaya, Samah Hayek, Ahmad Sheikh Muhammad, Kathleen Abu-Saad, Amira Osman, James F. Thrasher, and Ofra Kalter-Leibovici. “Stages of Change of the Readiness to Quit Smoking among a Random Sample of Minority Arab-Male Smokers in Israel.” BMC Public Health 15 (2015).

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-1950-8

Abstract

Background
Despite advanced smoking prevention and cessation policies in many countries, the prevalence of cigarette smoking among indigenous and some ethnic minorities continues to be high. This study examined the stages of change (SOC) of the readiness to quit smoking among Arab men in Israel shortly after new regulations of free-of-charge smoking cessation workshops and subsidized medications were introduced through primary health care clinics.

Methods
We conducted a countrywide study in Israel between 2012–2013. Participants, 735 current smokers; 18–64 years old; were recruited from a stratified random sample and interviewed face-to-face using a structured questionnaire in Arabic. We used ordered regression to examine the contribution of socio-economic position (SEP), health status, psychosocial attributes, smoking-related factors, and physician advice to the SOC of the readiness to quit smoking (pre-contemplation, contemplation and preparation).

Results
Of the current smokers, 61.8 % were at the pre-contemplation stage, 23.8 % were at the contemplation stage, and only 14.4 % were at the preparation stage. In the multinomial analysis, factors significantly (P < 0.05) contributing to contemplation stage compared to pre-contemplation stage included [odds ratio (OR), 95 % confidence interval (CI)]: chronic morbidity [0.52, (0.31-0.88)], social support [1.35, (1.07-1.70)], duration of smoking for 11–21 years [1.94, (1.07-3.50)], three or more previous attempts to quit [2.27, (1.26-4.01)], knowledge about smoking hazards [1.75, (1.29-2.35)], positive attitudes toward smoking prevention [1.44, (1.14-1.82)], and physician advice to quit smoking [1.88, (1.19-2.97)]. The factors significantly (P < 0.05) contributing to preparation stage compared to pre-contemplation stage were [OR, (95 % CI)]: chronic morbidity [0.36, (0.20-0.67)], anxiety [1.07, (1.01-1.13)], social support [1.34, (1.01-1.78)], duration of smoking 5 years or less [2.93, (1.14-7.52)], three or more previous attempts to quit [3.16, (1.60-6.26)], knowledge about smoking hazards [1.57, (1.10-2.21)], and positive attitudes toward smoking prevention [1.34, (1.00-1.82)].

Conclusions
Most Arab men who currently smoke are in the pre-contemplation stage, indicating low readiness to quit smoking. New policies of free-of-charge smoking-cessation group sessions and subsidized medications introduced through primary health care clinics in Israel may be less effective among Arab men. For these policies to promote cessation more successfully, tailored interventions and campaigns may be needed to increase the readiness to quit smoking in this population, especially for those at the pre-contemplation stage.

Exchange: Robert Cherry comments on Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s et al, Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Negev

Cherry, Robrt. “Comment on ‘Funding Pain: Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Naqab/Negev’.” Feminist Economics 21.4 (2015): 197-200.

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/13545701.2015.1074263
 
Extract

This is a response to claims made by Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Antonina Griecci Woodsum, Himmat Zu’bi, and Rachel Busbridge in this journal that patriarchal constraints have little to do with the low employment rates of Bedouin women and that their communities suffer from sustained government neglect.

 

 

 

New Article: Bisharat & Bowirrat, Challenges Faced by Arab Women Interested in Becoming Physicians

Bisharat, Bishara, and Abdalla Bowirrat. “Challenges Faced by Arab Women Who Are Interested in Becoming Physicians.” Israel Journal of Health Policy Research 4:30 (2015): 3 pp.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13584-015-0029-4

 

Abstract

Understanding the underlying reasons for the under-representation of Arab women within the health care system in Israel is crucial for creating future strategies for intervention, in order to minimize the gaps in the health care system and thus improve the medical services and health status.

Our commentary tries to shed light on the underrepresentation and the marginalization of the Arab women in society in general and in the medical field in specific.

 

 

Lecutre: Tzfadia, Israel’s Jewish-Arab City (Rutgers, Dec 3, 2015)

 

Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, Rutgers University

Presents

Erez Tzfadia

Living Together Separately: Israel’s Jewish-Arab City

Thursday, December 3, 2015; 7:30pm

Douglas Campus Center, 100 George Street, New Brunswick

New Article: Hager & Jabareen, Arab-Palestinians in Israeli Academia

Hager, Tamar, and Yousef Jabareen. “From Marginalisation to Integration: Arab-Palestinians in Israeli Academia.” International Journal of Inclusive Education (early view; online first)
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2015.1090488
 
Abstract

The Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel, one-fifth of the country’s population, has been underrepresented in Israeli institutions of higher education since the establishment of the state. This article focuses on the authors’ shared aim of promoting diversity and multiculturalism in institutions of higher education in Israel. It first introduces Arab marginalisation within Israeli society as a whole. Subsequently, it offers a critical overview of existing data and research on the challenges faced by young Arab-Palestinians in higher education institutions in Israel. Based on this indispensable analysis, which clearly shows the numerous obstacles that await Arab-Palestinians on their path to graduation, the article goes on to suggest some required changes. Presenting some useful policy transformations and courses of action, it subsequently introduces multicultural academia as a better conceptual and practical framework for achieving inclusive education.

 

 

 

New Article: Yirmiyahu et al, Does Accessibility to Higher Education Reduce Wage Inequality?

Yirmiyahu, Albert, Ofir D. Rubin, and Miki Malul. “Does Greater Accessibility to Higher Education Reduce Wage Inequality? The Case of the Arab Minority in Israel.” Studies in Higher Education (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1076781

 

Abstract

Many studies assessing national policy reforms in education focus on the likelihood of acquiring an advanced education and the associated returns in the labor market. In this paper, the authors investigate the impact of the Israeli Academic Colleges Law that was designed to promote the acquisition of higher education among all segments of the Israeli population. They found that this law, in fact, contributed to making higher education accessible more to the Israeli Arab minority than to the rest of the population. In addition, they demonstrate that the influence of the law on improving access to higher education is reflected in the increase in the earning potential of Israeli Arabs.

 

 

New Article: Schmittdiel, Patient-Centered Health Care Systems to Improve Outcomes and Reduce Disparities

Schmittdiel, Julie A. “Creating Patient-Centered Health Care Systems to Improve Outcomes and Reduce Disparities.” Israeli Journal of Health Policy Research 42 (2015).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13584-015-0039-2

 

Abstract
Health care delivery systems that are designed to understand and meet patient preferences for care have the potential to improve health outcomes and reduce disparities. Studies that rigorously assess patient care preferences in minority and underserved populations, stakeholder engagement, and policies that promote a diverse health care workforce that can address patient preferences are important levers for improving care for vulnerable populations.

 

 

Thesis: Katan, Improving Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel Through Workforce Integration

Katan, Dalia. Building a Shared Israeli Society: Improving Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel Through Workforce Integration, Senior Thesis. Princeton: Princeton University, 2015.

 

Advisor: Dancygier, Rafaela

 

URL: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01sq87bw961

Abstract
Integration is one of Israel’s greatest challenges, as Israeli Arabs, comprising 20 percent of the Israeli population, are still a segregated minority. After an incredibly violent summer for both Israelis and Palestinians, it has become more important than ever to find a solution to this issue that involves building a shared Israeli society. I argue that because the workforce is the last place where segregated societies can come together, it presents a critical opportunity to integrate. Driven by intergroup contact theory, this thesis demonstrates that (1) the workplace environment is optimal for positive intergroup contact, (2) integration in the workplace produces more positive outgroup opinions and (3) positive outgroup opinions can could withstand pressure from ethnic conflict. This is supported by 47 interviews and surveys, and guided by preexisting frameworks on intergroup contact. With this research, I hope to contribute to the literature on intergroup contact, which has yet to explore workforce integration in Israel and link it to intergroup contact theory. The findings of this thesis will be beneficial for private and public sectors to consider in order to maximize the benefits of intergroup contact and work toward a shared society.

New Article: Moran et al, Socioeconomic and Spatial Dimensions of Adolescent Obesity

Moran, Mika, R. Goldblatt, P. Plaut, R. Endevelt, and O. Baron-Epel. “The Socioeconomic and Spatial Dimensions of Adolescent Overweight and Obesity: The Case of Arab and Jewish Towns in Israel.” Journal of Environment and Health Sciences (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.15436/2378-6841.15.012

 

Abstract

Childhood and adolescent overweight/obesity is a major burden on public health worldwide. A growing body of empirical evidence highlights the impact of community characteristics of childhood obesity. This study explored socioeconomic and spatial variations of adolescent overweight/obesity in Israel by using an ecological approach. Towns’ socioeconomic and spatial characteristics were found associated with adolescent overweight/obesity in opposite directions in Jewish and Arab towns. Adolescent overweight/obesity was found to be more prevalent in Jewish towns characterized by lower socioeconomic rank (SER) and higher peripherality levels and in Arab towns characterized by higher SER and lower peripheraliy levels. Additionally, inequalities were found to be positively related to adolescent overweight/obesity in Jewish towns. After adjusting for SER, the associations between peripherality and adolescent overweight/obesity were attuned in Jewish towns, but not in Arab towns. These findings correspond with the literature, as the results obtained for the Jewish and Arab towns are consistent with studies conducted in developed and in developing countries, respectively. Therefore, the findings highlight the importance of macro level factors enhancing obesity, and suggest that national policy may benefit from town-level interventions addressing adolescent overweight/ obesity. Several explanations to the study’s findings are discussed, involving social, environmental and individual factors.

New Book: Monterescu, Jaffa Shared and Shattered

Monterescu, Daniel. Jaffa Shared and Shattered. Contrived Coexistence in Israel/Palestine. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.

 

Binational cities play a pivotal role in situations of long-term conflict, and few places have been more marked by the tension between intimate proximity and visceral hostility than Jaffa, one of the “mixed towns” of Israel/Palestine. In this nuanced ethnographic and historical study, Daniel Monterescu argues that such places challenge our assumptions about cities and nationalism, calling into question the Israeli state’s policy of maintaining homogeneous, segregated, and ethnically stable spaces. Analyzing everyday interactions, life stories, and histories of violence, he reveals the politics of gentrification and the circumstantial coalitions that define the city. Drawing on key theorists in anthropology, sociology, urban studies, and political science, he outlines a new relational theory of sociality and spatiality.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Contrived Coexistence: Relational Histories of Urban Mix in Israel/PalestinePart I. Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Communal Formations and Ambivalent Belonging
   1. Spatial Relationality: Theorizing Space and Sociality in Jewish-Arab “Mixed Towns”
   2. The Bridled “Bride of Palestine”: Urban Orientalism and the Zionist Quest for Place
   3. The “Mother of the Stranger”: Palestinian Presence and the Ambivalence of SumudPart II. Sharing Place or Consuming Space: The Neoliberal City
   4. Inner Space and High Ceilings: Agents and Ideologies of Ethnogentrification
   5. To Buy or Not to Be: Trespassing the Gated CommunityPart III. Being and Belonging in the Binational City: A Phenomenology of the Urban
   6. Escaping the Mythscape: Tales of Intimacy and Violence
   7. Situational Radicalism and Creative Marginality: The “Arab Spring” and Jaffa’s Counterculture

   Conclusion: The City of the Forking Paths: Imagining the Futures of Binational Urbanism

   Notes
   References
   Index

Daniel Monterescu is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University. He is author (with Haim Hazan) of A Town at Sundown: Aging Nationalism in Jaffa and editor (with Dan Rabinowitz) of Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities: Historical Narratives, Spatial Dynamics, Gender Relations and Cultural Encounters in Palestinian-Israeli Towns.

New Article: Popper-Giveon & Keshet, Choice of a Medical Career Among the Arab Minority in Israel

Popper-Giveon, Ariela, and Yael Keshet. “‘It’s Every Family’s Dream’: Choice of a Medical Career Among the Arab Minority in Israel.” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10903-015-0252-7

 

Abstract
Application to medical studies and the choice of medicine as a career are influenced by many factors, some internal (academic ability, intellectual curiosity, interests) and some external (parental pressure, peer pressure, teacher and school expectations). Ethnicity plays a role in motivational orientation and belonging to an ethnic minority group may influence both internal and external motives and priorities in choosing medicine as a career. In this article, we present a qualitative study of the motives that impel Arab physicians in Israel to choose a medical career. As a theoretical framework, we apply self-determination theory (SDT) (Ryan and Deci in Am Psychol 55:68–78, 2000), consisting of three principal categories situated along a continuum: Amotivation, extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. We show that extrinsic motivation is dominant among Arab physicians in Israel, demonstrating specifically the unique political context and cultural characteristics of Arab society in Israel. These findings, and the attention to the unique motivations of people from different ethnic minority groups who choose medical career, may increase the number of physicians from minority groups, a step known to decrease health gaps in multi-cultural contexts.