10376 Class, Gender and Ethnicity in Education: A Sociological Perspective 1

Credits: 6 advanced credits in Sociology & Anthropology

Prerequisites: 36 credits, including Introduction to Sociology. Students must also fulfill all English requirements and take bibliographic instruction in the Library.

Recommended: Introduction to Quantitative Research I: Principles and Design (or Research Methods in Social Sciences: Guiding Principles and Research Styles), Introduction to Quantitative Research II: Statistical Analysis

The course is based on readers (in Hebrew and English) edited by Yael Enoch and Zeev Soker.

In recent decades, the field of education, both in Israel and abroad, has undergone significant changes: the expansion of higher education, the emergence of new educational approaches (multiculturalism), neo-liberalization (privatization, magnet schooling), globalization (cross-national comparisons, international education).

The course introduces the various ways in which sociology attempts to explain these changes. It examines the relations between changes in the field of education and social, cultural and political factors such as class, status, gender and ethnicity. The course also discusses the implications of these relations for questions of social justice, equality and social recognition.

Topics: Theoretical developments in the sociology of education; Class, gender, ethnicity and educational inequality; Neo-liberalization and globalization of education; New conceptualizations of social justice and educational equality.


1Students may write a seminar paper in this course, although it is not required.

A previous version of this course was called Socialization. Students who took the course in the past may not take this course.