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Abstract
Based on a 20% representative sample of all high school students in Israel in the mid-1990s, this study explores a reform implemented in low socio-economic status (SES) state religious high schools. Most of their students were from the disadvantaged Jewish ethnic group in Israel, Mizrachim. Perceived as unable to meet the requirements of academic programs, more than half these students studied on lower ranked vocational tracks. As part of the reform, these tracks were replaced by academic tracks aimed at awarding students a matriculation diploma. Comparable low SES secular high schools did not adopt the same curriculum change, so a comparison of these two types of school for learning opportunities became possible. Results revealed a significant improvement in matriculation eligibility rates in low SES religious schools while eligibility rates in comparable non-religious schools remained relatively stable.
Notes
1. Dr Matityahu Dagan, who was the head of the administration of religious education in the Ministry of Education, and took part in all the discussions regarding the reform, provided the author with extensive information on opposition to the reform in the Ministry of Education. This information was communicated to the author in discussions and interviews with Dr Dagan, and in personal correspondence between the author and Dr Dagan.
2. For a detailed account of the way this variable was constructed, see the publication of the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics devoted to the classification of geographical units according to their socio-economic standard (Central Bureau of Statistics Citation2000).
3. Most students who were not given a value in this variable were residents of small municipalities for which this aggregative scale is not available.