In Your Face: An Exercise in Inter-human Sociology
This essay explores the relevance of inter-human sociology as key for understanding the sociology of the “social”, in its hegemonic and its critical variants alike. Inter-human sociology focuses on unmediated social encounters. It is analytically distinguished from encounters mediated through collective categories of identity, in fact challenging the sociological focus on the categorical and collective aspects of social life. The essay probes theoretical and methodological options made possible by inter-human sociology, focusing on the status of face-to-face encounters in sociological analyses. Specifically, the essay traces situations and technologies that contribute to the objectification of the human face and to the transformation of the face-to-face encounter into instruments of categorical positioning.
Social Implications of the Expansion and Diversification of Higher Education in Israel
The paper compares the social profiles of college (michlala) and university students and studies the reasons for diversity in students’ institutional choice. Underprivileged students were shown usually to prefer colleges to universities, for various reasons. Mizrachim prefer teacher-training and private colleges due to their practical orientation. Class differences in institutional choice mainly stem from differences in academic ability. Residents of the geographic periphery prefer regional colleges due to their location, but socially underprivileged residents of the geographic center take better advantage of these colleges. Gender inequality in higher education was not affected by its expansion: women and men concentrate in their traditional fields in all higher education institutions.
Up the Down Escalators: Expansion and Stratification in Education
Eyal Bar-Haim, Meir Yaish and Yossi Shavit
A lively debate in the literature on educational stratification revolves around the so-called Persistent Inequality hypothesis. In its strictest form this hypothesis argues that Inequality of Educational Opportunity (IEO) is constant over time. This paper reviews this debate in the literature. We begin with a general overview of theories on educational stratification, followed by a discussion of arguments for and against changes over time in IEO. We then review the main methodological approaches to the study of change in educational stratification, and discuss the effects of educational expansion on educational inequality. Next we consider the present status of the Persistence Inequality hypothesis, and review the empirical literature on change in IEO between ethnic groups and socioeconomic strata in Israel. Our review of the literature indicates affirmation of a weak version of the Persistent Inequality hypothesis.
Traditionally women in the IDF have been allocated administrative, training and support roles in a manner that reproduced gender discrimination. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, this study analyzes the beginning (1996-1999) of women’s entry into the IAF pilot training course. The pattern of assimilation, found to change from ‘conventionalism’ in pre-course selection to ‘integration’ in flight checks, is examined as reflecting the organizational pressure of acculturation into an ideal masculine pilot type. The assimilation of female cadets, which was primarily instrumental rather than ideological, was also accompanied by higher requirements. We conclude by discussing the course as a mechanism of socialization as well as cultural homogenization, exemplifying the assimilation of a female minority group in a male-dominated organization.
Making the Global Present: The Bank of Israel and the Politics of Inevitability of Neo-liberalism
Daniel Maman and Zeev Rosenhek
This paper examines the transformation of the Israeli political economy, focusing on the relationship between global processes and the actions of local political actors. Rather than postulating a direct causal link between globalization and the strengthening of neo-liberal principles, we examine the insertion of global logics in the local field by local political actors deploying a “politics of inevitability”, which depicts the adoption of neo-liberal practices as imposed by the imperatives of globalization. Aiming to portray the neo-liberal project as inevitable, the Bank of Israel mobilizes three key dimensions of globalization: the normative power of institutional models dominant in the global field, the coercive power of international financial organizations, and the structural power of global financial markets.
The Institutionalization of Israel's Field of Management as a Dynamic in Overlapping Fields
The paper examines the consolidation of the Israeli field of management as a dynamic process that took place operating at the intersection of the fields of local political power and of geopolitical power. This occurred in the context of the Cold War, specifically that of the United States’ objective of ensuring Israel’s affinity with the Western bloc. The transition of the professional management discourse in Israel into a “regime of truth” is shown to have been influenced by the logic of action characteristic of each of the fields and the types of action and capital that were considered legitimate in them.
An Invitation to a "Post-Secular" Sociology
The term ‘Post-secularism’ is introduced, arguing that it is founded on a non binary epistemology in which ‘secularity’ and ‘religion’ are treated not as antinomies, but rather as interwoven with each other. I probe the different meanings of ‘post-secularism’ and offer contour lines to discuss their ramifications in the social sciences. I distinguish genealogical analysis, which puts a premium on theology as the source of all social science thought, from analogical analysis as in political theology. Finally, I revisit the sociology of the society in Israel from a post-secular perspective, where I differentiate post-secularism as a temporal phenomenon from post-secularism as an epistemological post-structuralist perspective.
Book Reviews:
On: Economy and Society in Israel: Present and Historical Perspective \ Avi Bareli, Danny Gutwein, Tuvia Friling (eds.)
On: Identities in Uniform: Masculinities and Femininities in the Israeli Military \ Orna Sason-Levy
On: The Men We Loved: Male Friendship and Nationalism in Israeli Culture \ Danny Kaplan
On: Women in Agriculture in the Middle East (Prespectives on Rural Policy and Planning) \ Pnina Motzafi-Haller (ed.)
On: Life, Death and Sacrifice: Women and Family in the Holocaust \ Esther Hertzog (ed.)
On: Beyond Anne Frank: Hidden Children and Postwar Families in Holland \ Diane L. Wolf
On: Jewish Identities in a Multi-Modern Age \ Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Lior Ben-Chaim
On: Living with the Conflict: Socio-Psychological Analysis of the Israeli-Jewish Society \ Daniel Bar-Tal
On: Communital Resilience: Social Capital in the Kibbutz \ Avraham Pavin
On: The Internal popular Discourse in Israeli Haredi Society \ Kimmy Caplan
On: Dancing in a Thorn Field: The New Age Spirituality in Israel \ Ido Tavory (ed.)
On: On Israeli and Jewish Place \ Zali Gurevitch
On: Wadi Salib: A Confiscated Memory \ Yfaat Weiss
On: Zionism and the Biology of Jews \ Raphael Falk