The perception of Muslim and Christian populations residing in homogenous communities in Israel – About the importance of acquiring higher education

Modern society is structured as a social hierarchy, where individuals occupying a higher position enjoy various advantages. Many theoreticians have attempted to quantify social hierarchy, and one of the modern ones, Pierre Bourdieu, claimed that the hierarchy can be viewed through an individual’s three intertwined yet separate types of capital: economic capital (the individual’s material resources), cultural capital (their level of education), and social capital (their social connections with others). Likewise, it is known that acquiring higher education (greater cultural capital) is positively correlated with an increase in a person’s income (economic capital). Our study aims to examine whether there are differences between two groups of the Arab population residing in Israel – Muslim and Christian, in guiding their children to acquire higher education, as viewed through the prism of the three types of capital. It is roughly known that the Christian population is at an advantage compared to the Muslim population in Israel, in their accumulation of the three types of capital. To check this phenomenon, we conducted a qualitative study including in-depth interviews with two population groups (15 members of each group): one of the Muslim faith, the other of the Christian faith. Each religious group was divided into two more groups: high social class and low social class. We compared the four research groups and found that indeed there are significant differences in how each group guides their children to acquire higher education, a phenomenon which could deepen the existing inequality in Israeli society in general and within the Arab society specifically.