Social Inequality and Social Boundaries

This cluster of research groups and critical discussion groups aims to broaden and enrich scholarly analysis and knowledge of various aspects of social inequality. The key idea is that progress on the road to a more egalitarian and just society requires uncovering social experiences that have been silenced, and creating knowledge in critical and non-hegemonic frames of reference about the dominant discourse and praxis. In addition, scholars from marginalized groups must be allowed to take an active part in the constitution of this knowledge.
The cluster includes the following projects:

Israel's Housing Regime: Property, Ownership and Inequality
This research group aims to critically discuss and theoretically conceptualize Israel's housing policies since 1948. Specifically:
1. Analyze the transformations in Israel's housing policies while focusing on its contribution to ethno-class inequality; 2. Critically examine the institutionalized categories which distinguish between "ownership" and "homelessness"; 3. Establish an interdisciplinary forum for the study of housing in Israel.
Directors: Dr. Haim Yacobi and Shlomit Benjamin
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Crossing Boundaries: Destigmatization among Arab Citizens, Mizrahi Jews and Non-Jewish Migrants in Israel
This study group seeks to explore coping strategies of marginalized groups with perceived stigma. We focus on the "everyday" level of destigmatization strategies, that is, the ways in which members of stigmatized groups routinely (1) transform the meanings associated with their collective identity, (2) challenge stereotypes about their group maintained by the dominant group, (3) create, enact, or demand new forms of personal interaction on a day-to-day basis and, consequently, (4) play an active role in shaping processes of social reproduction. This study will fill theoretical and empirical lacunae in Israeli studies focusing primarily on "top-down" structural, institutional and discursive forms of ethnic inequality as well as in international anti-racism studies concerned with resource mobilization and social struggles against racism. The aim of the study is, therefore, to uncover the cultural frameworks through which members of minority groups account for inequality and their active role in coping with it.
Director: Dr. Nissim Mizrachi
Coordinator: Hanan Saadi

Ageism in Israeli Society
This project will promote novel research and create a valid and reliable quantitative tool for evaluating the dimensions of ageism in Israel and its characteristics, including stereotypes, discrimination, and social structuring of ageing in Israel. The project will make use of a series of studies focusing on various professions in Israel. The goal is to deepen academic discussion and socio-political discourse. A conference reflecting the advance so far was held in November 2009. This conference will be followed by the publication of a book containing the results of the studies as well as operative policy recommendations on dealing with ageism in Israel.
Director: Dr. Israel Doron

The Homeless
A two-year study constituting part of this project has yielded the first statistical data of this kind from Israel: street data. This year we will seek to broaden the project. We will conduct a longitudinal analysis that traces changes in the characteristics of homeless people over time. We will examine the institutional aspects of dealing with the homeless, on a national, local, and voluntary level. We will conduct the first ethnographic observations in centers for the homeless in order to study the ontological aspects of the phenomenon.
Directors: Prof. Yehouda Shenhav and Shlomit Binyamin

Identity and Class
This academic platform for young researchers – master's and doctoral students – combines academic excellence with social involvement. The group considers questions of social justice touching on the tension between identity and class, by comparing two approaches: the politics of recognition and the politics of distribution. The group will also challenge the separation of the two approaches. Each of the four discussion groups will organize a symposium on a burning social topic and will prepare a position paper that will be the basis for the symposium.
Directors: Dr. Yossi Dahann, Dr. Nissim Mizrachi, Dr. Itzhak Saporta
Coordinator: Yuval Evri

Young Arab Scholars
Launched in 2001, this project offered seminars and workshops to promising Arab graduate students, enabling them to maximize their professional promise. In its last year, 12 PhD students participated in the project, while a group of former participants initiated a research group to explore everyday interactions between Arabs and Jews in Israel.
Director: Dr. Adel Manna
Coordinator: Hanan Saadi

Disability Studies
In studies of minority groups in Israel there is a striking absence of studies of people with disabilities – a group banished from the public sphere both symbolically and physically. The discourse called "Disability Studies," which challenges the accepted treatment-rehabilitation discourse, has only recently begun to make an appearance in Israel. Disability Studies point to the social context in which certain bodily differences are constructed as disabilities, and the exclusion of people with impairments from a society constructed according to the needs of "normal" bodies. DS discourse exceeds a sectorial position by challenging prevailing social categories and concepts, such as bodily differences, normality and autonomy. This research group will map and describe the situation in Israel and will develop a unique theoretical framework for reexamining the scientific and professional discourse in this field. This year the first reader in Hebrew in the field is planned, as well as the first DS international conference in Israel.
Directors: Dr. Nissim Mizrachi, Prof. Neta Ziv
Advisor: Prof. Arlene Kanter
Coordinator: Adva Eichengreen
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Measuring the Unmeasurable
This research group deals with complex problems of measurement in such fields as education, health, poverty and intellectual productivity. Measurement in these fields is particularly problematic and even a small step forward can yield large benefits. In its first year, the group focused on measurement in education, health and intellectual capital. This year it will also consider measurement in government and the third sector. An international conference is planned, as is a book aimed at a broad audience that would have both theoretical and practical chapters.
Director: Prof. Moshe Justman
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Public Policy and Multiculturalism
This research group studies the role of formal and informal institutions in shaping ethnocultural conflicts and the possible responses to challenges posed by differences in language, ethnicity, religion, and culture, in Israel and in other countries. Its goal is not only to analyze the situation in Israel but also to propose a framework for coping with the challenge of multiculturalism now and in the future.
Directors: Prof. Yossi Yonah, Dr. Bashir Bashir and Dr. Guy Ben-Porat

Yearbook of Arab Society in Israel
The first collection of its kind, the Yearbook provides aggregate data pertaining to key aspects of Arab society in Israel, which enable an informed, responsible discussion on the topic. The project director and editor of the first book, published in 2005, was Prof. Aziz Haidar. The director and editor of the second book, published in 2008, was Dr. Adel Manna, and Prof. Rassem Khamaisi is the director and editor of the third book, published in December 2009.

Therapeutic Discourse, Inequality, and National Boundaries
In recent years, the therapeutic discourse has become a central object of study in sociology, anthropology, and the study of cultures. Many studies reveal the modernist nature of the therapeutic discourse, which is related to the appearance of the modern self as an object of scientific and professional observation and its implications for the modern construction of sociability. Special attention is paid to the influence of unequal relations based on ethnicity, social class, and gender. In the Israeli context, the therapeutic discourse has served, and still serves, as the scientific basis for standard policy regarding migration, education, the army, welfare, and labor.
This research group seeks to examine the various aspects of the therapeutic discourse in Israel, in different contexts and in different places. The analysis will include an examination of the influence of the therapeutic discourse on the processes of stratification and inequality in Israel at the macro level. The analysis also includes a focus on the micro level at specific sites, its interpretation by various societal actors (professionals and receivers of services), and the varied uses they make of it to construct their strategies of action and to interpret and give meaning to their lives.
Director: Dr. Nissim Mizrachi
Coordinator: Keren Friedman-Peleg
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