Class, status, and the intergenerational transmission of musical tastes in Israel

Abstract

This paper discusses the significance of status versus class in explaining the distribution of musical tastes among Jews in Israel. We analyze 15 music genres and four clusters that represent different musical realms: highbrow, western popular, mixed popular and eastern-religious popular. We embed the status versus class question in the particular features of Israeli society by focusing on two issues. First, the extent to which cultural stratification is affected by parental social position. Second, the role played by ethnicity and religiosity in affecting cultural stratification. Three main conclusions are drawn. First, status plays a more important role than class in shaping musical tastes that represent the highbrow/lowbrow dimension in cultural consumption. Second, in Israel musical tastes are shaped by parental social position rather than respondents’ social position. And third, both ethnicity and religiosity demarcate distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow tastes. The implications of these results for social stratification in Israel are discussed.