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Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents a critical review and discussion of a major field of Israeli sociology — the study of immigration and absorption. It concentrates on the dominant school of Israeli sociology, that of S. N. Eisenstadt and his associates, and points to the close relation between this body of work and functionalist theory. The paper demonstrates the inadequacy of this approach for the study of the formation of Israeli society, and its inability to deal with important economic and political developments. It is argued that its omissions and conclusions both point to the basic affinity between this school of Israeli sociology and the dominant state ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the relationship between nationalism and localism have brought evidence that these orientations might maintain either relations of opposition or congruence. By conceiving of localism mainly as a strategy, this paper argues that localism can be used alternately as an anchor of nationalist narrative or as an alternative to nationalism by the exact same community. This argument is illustrated by the case of Sakhnin, an Arab-Palestinian town in Israel. Local pride in Sakhnin has developed around two separate foci: a nationalist heroic narrative of martyrdom and the success of the local football team. These two foci developed in complete isolation, since the first is embedded in a Palestinian nationalist narrative while the latter is oriented toward the Israeli Jewish public. An ethnographic study follows the construction of these separate spheres and a survey conducted among 174 men in the town confirms that involvement in the football sphere correlates with both local pride and integrative orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Parent–school ideological fit is studied as the context of parent–child relationships and socialization. It was hypothesized that parents’ choice of school environments that promote values consistent with parents’ values is related to a better parent–child relationship and facilitates socialization. Participants were 589 Israeli families with religious, traditional, and nonreligious parents, whose adolescent children attended either religious or nonreligious schools. Most parents chose high–fit contexts—that is, schools that fit their own values. Parents in high–fit contexts exhibited relatively higher levels of value consistency, but lower levels of value discussion with their children. Value conflict with parents was lower in high–fit contexts, and the relationship with the father, but not with the mother, was warmer and closer. Accuracy of perception and acceptance of parental values, and parent–child value congruence were higher in high fit contexts, an effect partially mediated by relationship characteristics. The relevance of fit for family relationships, socialization, and school adaptation is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haifa University (HU) is the stage for a prolonged social drama between Arabs (20%) and Jews. 86 students (38 Arabs and 48 Jews) were interviewed on their experiences of injustice. Three major differences emerged. For the Arabs, 92% of injustice took place on campus compared to 40% for the Jews. Arabs attributed injustice to discrimination (60%), Jews to the actors’ personal characteristics (58%); the Arabs transformed injustice events into a political struggle for national recognition, identity, and narratives. The analysis intimates that Arabs’ “social being” is developing through the staging of negative expressive acts, namely, respect/contempt and power/weakness. Thus actors at HU can stage social processes, and change sites of surveillance and injustice into places of reconciliation and coexistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the Israeli case, the article questions the validity of the Western liberal model according to which (civil) "society" and "state" are two separate entities, the state ostensibly existing outside the society and imposing its will on it. Covering five distinct historical periods, from the beginning of the century until the present, and utilizing Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, the article surveys one of Israel's core myths, if not the core itself, that of the pioneer ( halutz ). The result exposes an intriguing system of domination, which is based on intensive activity and responsiveness of the population, and on a blurred distinction between the rulers and the ruled, between objects and subjects, and between state and society. Because of the existence of this system of domination it is difficult to talk about Israel in terms of a despotic state; hence also the obstacle to the constitution of a civil society in Israel. For this is effectively a hegemonic system of domination, which repels all social change by its ability to absorb any innovation and shape its meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though the characterization of Zionism as a colonial project is probably as old as the Zionist movement, as a specific scholarly sociological perspective in Israeli academia it was formulated only lately, in the wake of the Six Day War of 1967. This article outlines the contours of this new perspective, its theoretical assumptions and its political implications. It examines the historical circumstances which propelled its emergence, and than discerns two distinct sub-trends in it: Weberian and Marxist. Throughout are explored three distinct comparative issues: a comparison of the colonization perspective to other perspectives in Israeli sociology, especially the 'dualist perspective': a comparison of the case of Israel with other colonization cases, such as the U.S.A.: and a comparison of the two sub-trends in the perspective itself to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey of small-town Jews indicates that they generally conceive their relationship to their communities in terms of personal relations rather than economic factors; that they regard the general populace rather than the Jewish community as their primary reference group; that they incorporate to a considerable degree the small-town Weltanschauung; that they tend to be ’localites’ rather than ’cosmopolites’; that they view non-Jews in universalistic rather than particularistic terms; that they join organizations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, which stress status and exclusiveness; and that there is no significant difference in number between their Jewish and non-Jewish friends. The data lead us to the conclusion that small-town Jews are in general ’residents’ rather than ’strangers.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)