Israeli Sociology: Social Thought Amidst Struggles and Conflicts

Abstract

The basic challenge of Israeli sociology always has been, and continues to be to present days, the designation of its object of study; i.e. ‘Israeli society’. The history of Israeli sociology and its conception of ‘Israeli society’ may be discerned into the five following modules: 1. Proto-sociology. In the pre-state era, sociological thought thrived within the context of the socialist Zionism. The two prominent ‘proto-sociologists' were Arthur Ruppin and Martin Buber, who professed German communal perspectives. 2. Modernization sociology. The formative phase of sociology as a discipline was from 1950 to 1977. It was led by Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, who effected a transition from the German anti-modernist paradigm to an American modernization theory. 3. Critical sociology. The critical phase took place in the 1970s and 1980s. Critical sociology was manifested in elitism, pluralism, Marxism, feminism and colonization approaches. Simultaneously there emerged a robust branch of ‘quantitative sociology’. 4. Post-modern sociology. The turn towards post-modernity started in the 1990s. The three noticeable post-modern perspectives are: post-structuralism, post-colonialism and post-Marxism. 5. Palestinian Arab sociology in Israel. Palestinian Arab sociology is emerging and coming to its own since the 1990s. It reflects integration as well as alienation.