Education Reform and Narrowing Educational Gaps in Israel

The education system tries to minimize these gaps with its emphasis on the accomplishments of weaker socioeconomic sectors. Nevertheless, stronger groups in the population have an advantage in attaining an education.

This study examines the rate of education for those born between 1955 and 1981, and offers a method of tracking the gaps in education from the 1970s until the turn of the millennium. The results indicate a certain narrowing of the gap for matriculation eligibility between the varying socioeconomic levels. Within higher education, even with its significant expansion, socioeconomic inequality remains. The gap between Jews and Arabs in higher education that actually increased at the start of this period, decreased among those born in the 1970s and onwards as the rates of higher education among Arabs increased greatly. The gender gap for matriculation and academic rates among those born in the second half of the 1970s increased significantly in favor of women.

This appears as a chapter in the Center’s annual publication State of the Nation Report – Society, Economy and Policy 2010.