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This article offers a critical discursive analysis of the Israeli Ministry of Education's renewed interest in vocational education. This analysis reveals three discursive practices for promoting vocational education among key participants in the field: the rhetorical transition from 'vocational education' to 'technological education'; the disregard for the tracking involved in vocational education; the government's refusal to collect or publish statistics on the ethnic and class composition of vocational schools; and a dual discourse that refers to vocational education students as 'at-risk youth' whose needs are minimal, to guarantee them a 'routine' life ('being a person') based on the morality of low expectations. Technological education, is described as populated by students who are the elite of excellence, promising them a rich life, an open future, and the acquisition of 'tomorrow's professions.' Against this background, we proffer the term 'separatist biopolitics' to characterise the contemporary vocational education policy in Israel. Separatist biopolitics, offering divergent positive results ('the good life') to disadvantaged students (vocational education students) and elitist students (technological education students), is a tool for population management. The concept of separatist biopolitics also proposes adopting a critical reading of the vocational education policy to promote the consideration of alternative educational solutions.

This article examines the relationship between ethnic and class identities among members of a stigmatic ethnic group (Mizrahim) who experience upward mobility in Israel. The findings show how mobile Mizrahim do not report a classic cleft habitus, but rather a amalgam between the types of habitus associated with mobility, strategic preference of class identities, and maintenance of distance from ethnic identity. At the same time, the findings also reveal the heavy use of Orientalist discourse, boundary-work within the ethnic (and familial) group, strong negative emotions (disgust, hate), and self-negation. We offer an interpretation of this self-negation as a unique expression of cleft habitus. We also discuss the discursive explanations for this unique relationship between ethnic and class identities and the prevalent cultural scenario in Israel regarding mobility, which, in turn, affects the phenomenology of mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]