This article examines the effects of aggregated indicators of concentrated disadvantage on access of the 17‐18 age cohort in Arab and Jewish localities in Israel to high school matriculation. The major findings suggest that Arab localities secure a significantly lower access to educational credentials compared to their Jewish counterparts. Arab localities were found to be much more affected by their sociodemographic characteristics than by their relatively homogeneous subordinate position in the broader economic and labour market opportunity structure. By contrast, Jewish localities were found to be rather affected by their economic and labour market differentiation, much more than by their sociodemographic characteristics. The findings further reveal the existence of a significant interaction effect between the ethnic composition of the locality and other structural variables. In sum, the concentration of disadvantage at locality level affects access to educational credentials in Israel in two complementary ways, both related to the ethnic division of economic and occupational opportunities. Ethnic, spatial, economic and labour market marginalisation determines the subordinate position of Arab localities in the broader opportunity structure. This exacerbates the negative economic consequences of the prevalence of larger families in the locality on access to high school credentials. By contrast, economic and occupational differentiation mediates unequal educational opportunities among Jewish localities. The implications of these findings for the study of educational opportunities are then discussed.

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Abstract. Few attention was devoted to the relative impact exerted by differential university access and credentialing patterns on the intrasocial stratification of subordinate groups. The paper investigates the issue among Palestinian Arabs in Israel, along religious, socioeconomic and gender lines, as well as in comparison to respective trends of the Jewish majority. Findings suggest that, while inequalities in access, retention and graduation rates at university level persist between Jews and Palestinian Arabs; for the latter, the combined effects of labor-market structure and regulative sectorial state policies, have determined considerably the relative impact of social group of origin on university enrollment, retention and graduation rates. The various implications of these findings are then discussed, urging further, and more elaborate, research into their socioeconomic and political consequences.