Analyses of perceptions of social cleavages and inequality among junior high school students indicated the ability of young adolescents to accurately apprehend a multifaceted social structure. A perception of a fairly conflictual social map of a considerable level of inequality was revealed, but within a conception of a well-differentiated social structure. Ethnic cleavage and inequality appeared least prominent among the cleavages and inequalities that were studied. Likewise, students' personal and social traits explained only a minor part of the variance in perceptions. Among these traits, cognitive ability exerted the strongest effect on perceptions whereas the effects of socioeconomic background and ethnic extraction were minuscule. Considering the centrality of discourse on ethnic disparities in Israeli media and politics, these findings suggest that among the younger generation, a construction of social reality is evolving in which ethnicity plays a lesser role.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Amir, Y. , Sharan, S., & Ben-Ari, R. (Eds.). (1985). School desegregation: Cross-cultural perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
2.
Atzmon, Y. (1990). Women and politics: The case of Israel. Women and Politics, 10, 43-57.
3.
Baldus, B. , & Tribe, V. (1987). The development of perceptions and evaluations of social inequality among public school children. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 15, 50-60.
4.
Bell, W. , & Robinson, R. V. (1980). Cognitive maps of class and racial inequalities in England and the United States. American Journal of Sociology, 86, 320-349.
5.
Ben-Rafael, E. (1982). The emergence of ethnicity: Cultural groups and social conflicts in Israeli society. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
6.
Ben-Rafael, E. , & Sharot, S. (1991). Ethnicity, religion, and class in Israeli society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
7.
Borg, I. , & Lingoes, J. C. (1987). Multidimensional similarity structure analysis. New York: Springer.
8.
Canter, D. (1985). Facet theory. New York: Springer.
9.
Centers, R. (1950). Social class identification of American youth. Journal of Personality, 18, 290-302.
10.
Central Bureau of Statistics . (1992). Statistical abstracts of Israel. Jerusalem: Author.
11.
Chen, M. (1977). Achievement and ascriptive factors in the formation of sense of deprivation. Rivon Lemehkar Chevrati (The Social Research Quarterly), 19-12, 149-166. (Hebrew)
12.
Cohen, E. (1983). Ethnicity and legitimation in contemporary Israel. Jerusalem Quarterly, 28, 111-124.
13.
Cohen, Y. , Bechar, S., & Raijman, R. (1987). Occupational sex segregation in Israel, 1972-1983. Israel Social Science Research, 5, 97-106.
14.
Coxon, A.P.M. , Davies, P. M., & Jones, C. L. (1986). Images of social stratification: Occupational structures and class. London: Sage.
15.
Dahrendorf, R. (1979). Life chances. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16.
Dar, Y. , & Resh, N. (1993). Feelings of deprivation among junior high school students in Israel. Megamot, 35, 38-61. (Hebrew)
17.
Deutsch, M. , & Steil, J. M. (1988). Awakening the sense of injustice. Social Justice Research, 2, 3-23.
18.
Elazar, D. J. (1985). Israel's compound politics. In E. Krausz (Ed.), Politics and society in Israel (Studies of Israeli Society, Vol. 3). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
19.
Estvan, F. , & Estvan, E. (1959). The child's world: His social perception. New York: Putnam.
20.
Furby, L. (1979). Inequalities in personal possessions: Explanations for and judgments about unequal distribution. Human Development, 22, 180-202.
21.
Furnham, A. , & Stacey, B. (1991). Young people's understanding of society. London: Routledge.
22.
Ginor, F. (1979). Socioeconomic disparities in Israel. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
23.
Guttman, L. (1968). A general non-metric technique for finding the smallest coordinate space in a configuration of points. Psychometrica, 33, 469-506.
24.
Hall, W. S. , & Jose, P. E. (1983). Cultural effects on the development of equality and inequality. In R. L. Leahy (Ed.), The child's construction of social inequality. New York: Academic Press.
25.
Hartman, M. (1979). Prestige grading of occupations with sociologists as judges. Quality and Quantity, 13, 1-19.
26.
Herzog, H. (1985). The ethnic lists in elections 1981: An ethnic political Identity? In E. Krausz (Ed.), Politics and society in Israel (Studies of Israeli Society, Vol. 3). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
27.
Himmelweit, H. T. , Halsey, A. H., & Oppenheim, A. N. (1952). The view of adolescents on some aspects of social class structure. British Journal of Sociology, 3, 148-172.
28.
Horowitz, D. , & Lissak, M. (1989). Trouble in Utopia: The overburdened polity of Israel. Albany: State University of New York Press.
29.
Jahoda, G. (1959). Development of the perception of social differences in children from 6 to 10. British Journal of Psychology, 50, 159-176.
30.
Katz, R. , & Peres, Y. (1986). The sociology of the family in Israel: An outline of its development from the 1950s to the 1980s. European Sociological Review, 2, 148-159.
31.
Keating, P. D. (1990). Adolescent thinking. In S. S. Feldman & G. R. Elliot (Eds.), At the threshold: The developing adolescent. New York: Cambridge University Press.
32.
Kimmerling, B. (1985). The reopening of the frontiers, 1967-82. In E. Krausz (Ed.), Politics and society in Israel (Studies of Israeli Society, Vol. 3). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
33.
Kohlberg, L. (1976). Moral stages and moralization: The cognitive-developmental approach. In T. Lickona (Ed.), Moral development and behavior: Theory, research, and social issues. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
34.
Leahy, R. L. (1983). The development of the conception of social class. In R. L. Leahy (Ed.), The child's construction of social inequality. New York: Academic Press.
35.
Leslau, A. , Krausz, E., & Nussbaum, S. (1987). Feelings of discrimination among Iraqis and North-Africans in Israel. Plural Societies, 17, 34-44.
36.
Levy, S. , Levinson, H., & Katz, E. (1993). Beliefs, observances, and social interaction among Israeli Jews. Jerusalem: The Louis Guttman Israel Research Institute of Applied Social Research.
37.
Lewin-Epstein, N. , & Stier, H. (1987). Labor market structure, gender, and socio-economic inequality in Israel. Israel Social Science Research, 5, 107-120.
38.
Liebman, C. S. , & Don-Yehiya, E. (1983). Civil religion in Israel: Traditional Judaism and political culture in the Jewish state. Berkeley: University of California Press.
39.
Lingoes, J. C. (1973). The Guttman-Lingoes Nonmetric Program Series. Ann Arbor, MI: Mathesis Press.
40.
Lipset, S. M. , & Rokhan, S. (1967). Cleavage structures, party systems, and voter alignments: An introduction. In S. M. Lipset & S. Rokhan (Eds.), Party system and voter alignments. New York: Free Press.
41.
Mannheim, K. (1952). The problem of generations. In Essays on the sociology of knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press.
42.
Marjoribanks, K. , Secombe, M., & Smolicz, J. J. (1985). Cognitive maps of class and ethnic inequalities: A comparative analysis. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 26, 100-108.
43.
Markman, E. M. (1988). Categorization and naming in children: Problems of induction. Cambridge: MIT Press.
44.
Nahon, Y. (1987). Patterns of educational expansion and the structure of occupational opportunities: The ethnic dimension. Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute for the Research of Israel. (Hebrew)
45.
Ossowski, S. (1963). Class structure in the social consciousness. New York: Free Press.
46.
Peres, Y. , & Shrift, R. (1978). Intermarriage and interethnic relations. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1, 428-451.
47.
Robinson, R. V. (1983). Explaining perceptions of class and racial inequality in England and the United States of America. British Journal of Sociology, 34, 344-366.
48.
Sabbagh, C. , Dar, Y., & Resh, N. (1994). The structure of social justice judgments: A facet approach. Social Psychology Quarterly, 57, 244-261.
49.
Semyonov, M. (1981). Effects of community on status attainment. The Sociological Quarterly, 22, 359-372.
50.
Shye, S. (Ed.). (1978). Theory construction and data analysis in the behavioral sciences. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
51.
Shye, S. (1991). Ethnic integration and value polarity in Israel: Facet structure and assessment scales. Megamot, 33, 413-430. (Hebrew)
52.
Simmons, R. G. , & Rosenberg, M. (1971). Functions of children's perceptions of the stratification system. American Sociological Review, 36, 235-249.
53.
Smooha, S. (1978). Israel: Pluralism and conflict. London: Routledge.
54.
Smooha, S. (1982). Existing and alternative policy towards the Arabs in Israel. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 5, 71-98.
55.
Spilerman, S. , & Habib, J. (1976). Development towns in Israel: The role of community in creating ethnic disparities in labor force characteristics. American Journal of Sociology, 81, 781-812.
56.
Tudor, J. F. (1971). The development of class awareness in children. Social Forces, 49, 470-476.
57.
Tyree, A. , Semyonov, M., & Kraus, V. (1987). Which worm does the early bird get? Ethnic stratification in Israel. In R. V. Robinson (Ed.), Research in social stratification and mobility (Vol. 6). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
58.
Yogev, A. , & Ayalon, H. (1986). High school attendance in a sponsored multiethnic system: The case of Israel. In A. C. Kerckhoff (Ed.), Research in sociology of education (Vol. 6). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
59.
Yuchtman-Yaar, E. (1985). Differences in ethnic patterns of socioeconomic achievement in Israel: A neglected aspect of structural inequality. International Review of Modern Sociology, 15, 99-116.
