The relative standings of four ethnic groups - Muslim Palestinians, Christian Palestinians, Asian-African Jews, European Jews -were compared, using mobility data from 1974 and 1991. The findings show that despite the lack of government support and the prevalence of inexorable discrimination against Israeli Palestinians, they have narrowed the gap with Asian-African Jews in both education and occupational prestige. This finding demonstrates that ideological and political hegemony is not always effective in improving the socio-economic standing of preferred minorities (Asian-African Jews), and that social and economic structures may counterbalance the anti-Palestinian nationalist ideology. The analysis suggests that residential and educational segregation of Palestinians protects them from direct competition with European Jews, whereas Asian-African Jews have to compete with this dominant group in schools, as well as in the labour market.
This study exploits the unique demographic structure of the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel and their geographical immobility in order to help resolve the riddle why women in the Middle East and North Africa are less likely to participate in the labor force than women elsewhere in the world. We show that, controlling for economic variables, Muslim and Druze Arab women are more likely to enter the labor force if they live in a locality where Christian Arabs live as well. A possible explanation of this finding is the impact of social interaction among people who have different cultural schemas. Female labor force participation is rising throughout the Middle East, including among ArabPalestinians in Israel, but the tempo of this transformation depends on various local variables, and in this article we identify one such factor, namely, the ethno-religious composition of a community.
In this paper we contrast two opposing theoretical views in the sociology of sport. The first sees sport as a field that brings together different groups and bridges social divides. In this view, minority sport stars serve both as role models and as a mouthpiece voicing the feelings and needs of their ethnic groups. The opposing view holds that the sport field reflects the tendencies of the larger society, helping to maintain the social dominance of hegemonic groups. In this view sport stars serve mostly as tokens and have no real influence on the social order. Our systematic analysis of Israeli media between the years 2002 and 2007 lends support to the latter view. We show that the expressions and behaviours of Israeli Palestinian soccer players are consistently policed and silenced by the Jewish-dominated media discourse, effectively blocking one of the few channels of expression for the Arab public in Israel.
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