University education, credentialism and social stratification among Palestinian Arabs in Israel

Abstract

Few attention was devoted to the relative impact exerted by differential university access and credentialing patterns on the intrasocial stratification of subordinate groups. The paper investigates the issue among Palestinian Arabs in Israel, along religious, socioeconomic and gender lines, as well as in comparison to respective trends of the Jewish majority. Findings suggest that, while inequalities in access, retention and graduation rates at university level persist between Jews and Palestinian Arabs; for the latter, the combined effects of labor-market structure and regulative sectorial state policies, have determined considerably the relative impact of social group of origin on university enrollment, retention and graduation rates. The various implications of these findings are then discussed, urging further, and more elaborate, research into their socioeconomic and political consequences.