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

 

New Article: Babis, Integration and Isolation within the Latin American Association in Israel

Babis, Deby. “The Paradox of Integration and Isolation within Immigrant Organisations: The Case of a Latin American Association in Israel.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2016.1166939

 

Abstract

Most immigrant organisations aim to facilitate the integration of immigrants into the host society while seeking to preserve their cultural heritage. In order to explore the tension between these two apparently opposite processes within immigrant organisations, a case study was carried out on the Organization of Latin American Immigrants in Israel (OLEI). The research question focuses on how, and to what extent, OLEI contributes to the integration of Latin American immigrants into Israeli society and how, and to what extent, it contributes to their isolation. The findings indicate that while individual services promote the integration of Latin American immigrants into Israeli society, communal services both isolate and integrate them simultaneously. To address this paradox, I suggest an interpretation of this process as ‘integration through isolation’, since OLEI socially isolates immigrants, but at the same time integrates them into the host society by providing Israeli culture in Spanish.

 

 

 

New Article: Guetzkow & Fast, Symbolic Boundaries and Social Exclusion: A Comparison of Arab Palestinian Citizens and Ethiopian Jews

Guetzkow, Josh, and Idit Fast. “How Symbolic Boundaries Shape the Experience of Social Exclusion. A Case Comparison of Arab Palestinian Citizens and Ethiopian Jews in Israel.” American Behavioral Scientist (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002764215607581

 

Abstract

Symbolic boundaries, understood as the conceptual distinctions used to demarcate in-groups and out-groups, are fundamental to social inequality. While we know a great deal about how groups and individuals construct and contest symbolic boundaries along lines of class, race, ethnicity, religion, and nationality, less attention is given to (a) national belonging as a component of symbolic boundaries distinct from citizenship and (b) comparing how distinct symbolic boundaries shape individuals perceptions of, and reactions to, instances of stigmatization and discrimination. To examine these issues we compared two marginalized groups in Israel, Arab Palestinian citizens and Ethiopian Jewish immigrants. Analyzing 90 in-depth interviews, we find that exclusion based on boundaries of nationality engenders different ways of interpretating and responding to stigmatizing and discriminatory behavior, compared with exclusion based on racial and ethnic boundaries. While Ethiopians see everyday stigmatizing encounters as part of their temporary position as a recently immigrated group from a developing country, and react accordingly with attempts to prove their worth as individuals and ultimately assimilate, Palestinians view the line between them and the Jewish majority as relatively impermeable and attempts to fully integrate as mostly useless, viewing solidarity and education as a means to improve their group’s standing.

 

 

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.

 

 

New Article: Gonen, Widespread and Diverse Forms of Gentrification in Israel

Gonen, Amiram. “Widespread and Diverse Forms of Gentrification in Israel.” In Global Gentrifications: Uneven Development and Displacement (ed. Loretta Lees,Hyun Bang Shin,and Ernesto Lopez-Morales; Bristol, UK and Chicago, IL: Policy Press, 2015): 143-63.

 

Extract

My ongoing observations over the last three decades on patterns of gentrification in Israeli inner cities, suburban towns and rural communities have led me to view gentrification from a different geographical perspective to the one shared by many Western researchers writing on gentrification. Research on gentrification originated in the heart of some Western cities and, therefore, gentrification was often characterised as primarily an inner-urban phenomenon. It was first observed and defined in an academic fashion in inner London and subsequently studied in the 1980s and early 1990s in the inner city of some North American and British cities. Indeed, the settling of middle class households in lower-social class neighbourhoods of the inner city has achieved sizeable proportions in Western cities since the 1970s.

[…]

The Israeli experience raises the issue of the need to widen the scope of the term ‘gentrification’ beyond lower-class neighbourhoods. This definitional widening is especially relevant to middle-class neighbourhoods in the inner city that have undergone some social downscaling, later reversed due to the return of middle-class households. I suggest that this return of such neighbourhoods to being again solidly middle-class areas should be included within the definition of gentrification as a special category of ‘regentrification’, added to the one proposed as ‘supergentrification’ for the further gentrification of already-gentrified neighbourhoods by the very rich global elites.

 

 

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 Book: Goldscheider, Israeli Society in the Twenty-First Century

Goldscheider, Calvin. Israeli Society in the Twenty-First Century. Immigration, Inequality, and Religious Conflict, Schusterman Series in Israel Studies. Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press (imprint of University Press of New England), 2015.

This volume illuminates changes in Israeli society over the past generation. Goldscheider identifies three key social changes that have led to the transformation of Israeli society in the twenty-first century: the massive immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union, the economic shift to a high-tech economy, and the growth of socioeconomic inequalities inside Israel. To deepen his analysis of these developments, Goldscheider focuses on ethnicity, religion, and gender, including the growth of ethnic pluralism in Israel, the strengthening of the Ultra-Orthodox community, the changing nature of religious Zionism and secularism, shifts in family patterns, and new issues and challenges between Palestinians and Arab Israelis given the stalemate in the peace process and the expansions of Jewish settlements.

Combining demography and social structural analysis, the author draws on the most recent data available from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics and other sources to offer scholars and students an innovative guide to thinking about the Israel of the future.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of contemporary Israel, the Middle East, sociology, demography and economic development, as well as policy specialists in these fields. It will serve as a textbook for courses in Israeli history and in the modern Middle East.

Table of Contents

• List of Tables and Figure
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Nation-Building, Population, and Development
• Ethnic Diversity Jewish and Arab Populations of Israel
• Immigration, Nation-Building, and Ethnic-Group Formation
• Arab Israelis Demography, Dependency, and Distinctiveness
• Urbanization, Residential Integration, and Communities
• Religiosity, Religious Institutions, and Israeli Culture
• Inequality and Changing Gender Roles
• Education, Stratification, and Inequality
• Inequality and Mortality Decline
• Family Formation and Generational Continuities
• Emergent Israeli Society Nation-Building, Inequalities, and Continuities
• Appendix: Data Sources and Reliability
• Bibliography
• Index

Dissertation: Wooten, Gender Integration into the Military

Wooten, Jeff. Gender Integration into the Military: A Meta-Analysis of Norway, Canada, Israel, and the United States, EdD Dissertation, University of New England, 2015.
 
URL: http://dune.une.edu/theses/33/
 
Abstract

Over the past 15 years, the Global War on Terrorism has necessitated an examination of the military’s practices and the way that they meet the complexities of new and different types of war and tactics. Vital to this examination are policies related to the inclusion and deployment of women in combat. Burba stated war is not a setting for social testing, but the American Military must embrace the social subtleties of gender differences in an effort to meet the Armed Services requirement for an ever-changing asymmetrical battlefield. This study compares and contrasts the American current policy divergent to three other countries’ policies that have successfully integrated women into combat: Norway, Canada, and Israel. Through this examination, an opportunity to recognize gaps in training and procedural information that are most important to the successful implementation in the United States is revealed. The scientific data, although supporting the fact that physiological differences exist between men and women, were not supported in the argument that all women should be excluded from combat units. In all case studies, it was found that women who volunteered for combat assignments performed equally as well as their male counterparts without degradation of operational readiness or a lower unity of cohesion. However, I was not surprised that the leaders of the three counties observed that the successful integration of women into combat units is not about changing a culture. It is simply a leadership issue.

 

 

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: Shani and Ram, Inclusion in Israel and Ecological Perspectives

Shani, Michal and Drorit Ram. “Perceptions of School Administration Team Members Concerning Inclusion in Israel: Are They in Congruence with the Ecological Sustainable Perspective?” British Journal of Special Education (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8578.12103

 

Abstract

Based on an ecological perspective, inclusive education should involve two essential components: a shared ideology of providing a culturally responsive educational system where the needs of every child are met and a school policy geared towards the implementation of inclusion practices, with collaborations among staff members who create sustainable relationships. The study’s aim was to gain a better understanding of School Administration Team Members’ (SATMs’) perceptions of inclusive education in general elementary schools. It was found that although SATMs expressed pro-inclusion ideological statements, they have not yet manifested an ecological view of inclusion de facto that is holistic in nature. By and large, respondents expressed reactive rather than proactive perceptions. It appears that collaborations have not yet been initiated where inclusion is discussed, and a shared ideology is constructed. The research suggests that the perceptions of SATMs reflect perspectives of problem solving, survival, and partial collaborative networks that do not fully embrace ecological sustainable perspectives.

 
 
 
 

New Article: Stavans, Bi-Literacy Patterns in Ethiopian Immigrant Families

Stavans, Anat. “Enabling Bi-Literacy Patterns in Ethiopian Immigrant Families in Israel: A Socio-Educational Challenge.” International Journal of Multilingualism 12.2 (2015): 178-95.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2015.1009373

 

Abstract

This paper explores the role that languages and literacy practices play in Ethiopian immigrant families transposed to Israel as part of Israel’s family language policy, by examining parental perspectives on their respective L1 and L2 usages, in both parents’ and children’s lives, as well as by examining the home literacy provisions supporting children’s literacy development. The study profiles 67 Ethiopian immigrant families and describes the factors affecting home and school literacy patterns, assessing usage and attitude in L1 and L2 proficiency, as well as families’ literacy-driven discourse practices. The findings of this study indicate that Ethiopian parents engage in their children’s educational and social life until first grade, when they relinquish the maintenance of L1 in favour of a yet-incomplete L2. The Ethiopian case is instrumental to describe language and literacy affordances in a country that is officially trilingual, a neighbourhood that is at least quadrilingual, a home that is bilingual and a schooling system that is monolingual. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate that although both Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian parents have different extended discourses and perhaps even discursive preferences, the form and function of these discourses coincide with those needed or assumed for successful development of scholastic literacy. Against this background, a need emerges to espouse a mutual respect and interaction between the two literacy traditions to enhance both children’s and parents’ literacy development.

 

New Article: Korem and Horenczyk, Social Strategies in Intercultural Relations of Ethiopian Immigrants

Korem, Anat and Gabriel Horenczyk. “Perceptions of Social Strategies in Intercultural Relations: The Case of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 49 (2015): 13-24.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2015.06.008

 

Abstract

Social strategies are a central component of intercultural competence, and are vital in understanding, theoretically and practically, the immigration and acculturation process. This study focused on an immigrant group experiencing identity threat, namely young Ethiopians in Israel, and examined their perceptions of social strategies in intergroup relations. Thematic analysis was performed on two types of qualitative data: (1) newspaper articles in which members of the Ethiopian community addressed aspects of their social strategies (31 reports collected from seven newspapers and magazines) and (2) data from two focus groups conducted afterwards with young adult members of the Ethiopian community (five to seven participants in each group). A major pattern emerging from the immigrants’ reports is the adoption of the hosts’ perspective and attitudes regarding the effective norms of social behavior. In their daily coping, on the other hand, the immigrant youth tended to exhibit a complex and at times ambivalent variety of behavioral patterns in their social interactions with members of the host culture. This spectrum of social strategies suggests dynamic processes of trial and error and reflects the unique complexity of intercultural competence. Findings were analyzed in terms of the immigrants’ perception of the threat to their identity and of their ways of coping with those threats.

New Article: Guy; Young Israeli Jewish and Arab Adults’ Notion of the Adaptive Adult

Guy, Anat. “The Impact of Cultural Orientation and Higher Education on Young Israeli Jewish and Arab Adults’ Notion of the Adaptive Adult.” Children & Society (online first, early view).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/chso.12124

 

 

Abstract

This quantitative study compares young adults’ notions of the adaptive adult prior to becoming parents in Israel together with the moderating effect of academic education and culture on these notions. Participants were drawn from Israel’s two largest ethnic groups: Jews and Muslims. The research findings indicate that each group’s ideal image of the adaptive adult is constructed prior to parenthood. The findings may also indicate acculturation process among Muslim Arabs in Israel who are exposed to individualistic values (Israeli Jewish society). This process may modify personal values and preference regarding the ideal adaptive adult in order to integrate themselves and their future offspring into that society. This trend was found to be more common among highly educated members of the collectivist society.

 

New Article: Feniger, Jewish Ethnicity and Educational Opportunities in Israel

Feniger, Yariv. “Jewish Ethnicity and Educational Opportunities in Israel: Evidence from a Curricular Reform.” Race, Ethnicity, and Education 18.4 (2015): 567-88.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13613324.2012.759928

 

Abstract

Based on a 20% representative sample of all high school students in Israel in the mid-1990s, this study explores a reform implemented in low socio-economic status (SES) state religious high schools. Most of their students were from the disadvantaged Jewish ethnic group in Israel, Mizrachim. Perceived as unable to meet the requirements of academic programs, more than half these students studied on lower ranked vocational tracks. As part of the reform, these tracks were replaced by academic tracks aimed at awarding students a matriculation diploma. Comparable low SES secular high schools did not adopt the same curriculum change, so a comparison of these two types of school for learning opportunities became possible. Results revealed a significant improvement in matriculation eligibility rates in low SES religious schools while eligibility rates in comparable non-religious schools remained relatively stable.

New Article: Rebhun, Israeli Émigrés in the United States and Europe Compared

Rebhun, Uzi. “Immigrant Acculturation and Transnationalism: Israelis in the United States and Europe Compared.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 53.3 (2014): 613-35.

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12135/abstract

Abstract

This article examines relations between social integration into host societies, religio-ethnic acculturation into group belonging, and ties to home country among Israeli émigrés in the United States and Europe. I use data from a 2009–2010 Internet survey into which I incorporated country-contextual characteristics. The results of multivariate analyses show that a social integration combining duration of residence abroad and local citizenship enhances religio-ethnic identification. Another measure of integration, social networks, deters group behaviors. All measures of general integration inhibit attachment to the home country, whereas religio-ethnic acculturation is largely insignificant for transnationalism. The religiosity of the new country does not influence immigrants’ religio-ethnic patterns or homeland attachment. Insofar as group size is a significant determinant of particularistic behaviors, it weakens them. The more policy-based opportunities newcomers receive, the more they dissociate from group behaviors and homeland ties. Irrespective of individual and contextual factors, living in the United States encourages group affiliation more than living in Europe does. The results are discussed in reference to four working hypotheses—marginalization, integration, assimilation, and separation—and from a U.S.-European comparative perspective.