This paper formalizes a widely discussed peer eect entitled 'acting white'. 'Acting White'is modeled as a two audience signaling quandary: signals that induce high wages can be signals that induce peer group rejection. Without peer eects, equilibria involve all ability types choosing dierent levels of education. 'Acting White'alters the equilibrium dramatically: the (possibly empty) set of lowest ability individuals and the set of highest ability individuals continue to reveal their type through investments in education; ability types in the middle interval pool on a common education level. Only those in the lower intervals are accepted by the group. The model's predictions …t many stylized facts in the anthropology and sociology literatures regarding social interactions among minority group members.

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An Economic Analysis of “Acting White”

Theodore Roosevelt and his fellow Progressives hoped that universal military training would “Americanize” the mass of newcomers who had recently landed on America’s shores. Leonid Brezhnev similarly believed that widespread service in the Red Army would forge a uniaed Soviet citizenry committed to “the Socialist Motherland,” internationalism, and “the friendship of the peoples.”1 Like many leaders before and after them, Roosevelt and Brezhnev turned to the armed forces and the policy of universal military service at least in part to help build cohesive national communities out of their countries’ multinational jumbles. This view of the military as a key institution for the labeling and transmission of social values has roots stretching back to ancient Greece,2 but the armed forces arst achieved great popularity as a nation builder toward the end of the nineteenth century. At that time, the military was widely hailed across Europe as a “school for the nation,” and its apparent success was emulated as far away as czarist Russia and Meiji Japan. As countries across Africa and Asia won independence in the decades following World War II, they charged their armies with weaving a national fabric rent by communal rifts. Throughout the twentieth century, countries across the ideological spectrum have turned to the armed forces in the quest for national integration.3 A School for the Nation?

A School for the Nation? How Military Service Does Not Build Nations, and How It Might

Social axioms are the prevailing common and basic beliefs that supposedly guide behavior in a culture. Lack of accurate knowledge about them may therefore interfere with adaptation to a culture. The present study investigated the implications of in accurate of knowledge regarding the Israeli social axioms upon how immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union have adapted to the Israeli society. Central findings were that a lack of knowledge of the social axioms is negatively related to the sociocultural adaptation of immigrants, that lack of knowledge regarding social axioms had a unique contribution to prediction of adaptation difficulties over the contribution of lack of knowledge about values, and that knowledge of a culture’s prevailing social axioms contributes more to sociocultural adaptation than does actual proximity of the immigrants’ own social axioms to those of the majority. These findings strongly support the utility of social axioms as cultural descriptors.

Lack of Knowledge of a Culture’s Social Axioms and Adaptation Difficulties among Immigrants

This study investigated the relationship of ego identity to ethnocentrism, ethnic identification, and cognitive complexity. A sample of 378 Israeli high school students were administered: (a) the A...

Ego Identity: Effects of Ethnocentrism, Ethnic Identification, and Cognitive Complexity in Israeli, Oriental, and Western Ethnic Groups:

This article extends recent work on political tolerance to a cross-national context. In it we argue that a content-controlled measurement strategy is ideal for cross-cultural research, and we examine the dual processes of target group selection and of deciding the extent to which one tolerates target groups, once they are selected. We argue that the first process is rooted in concerns of social adjustment, and the second in externalization and object appraisal. This leads to a certain set of predictions, which we modify slightly when we combine this social psychological theory with a cross-national research design, one we ultimately label a modified most-different-systems design. The same individual level model is estimated on the U.S. and on the Israeli data, and the results suggest that although the social and psychological processes underlying political tolerance are very similar in the two contexts, there are significant political differences between the two nations which do affect the impact of individual-level variables on tolerance.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S000305540025020X

The Political Context of Tolerance: The United States and Israel

Israel: Social Structure and Change is the fullest and most up-to-date book on social and political change in this fascinating country. The book deals with urban and institutional development, the role and the place of the kibbutz today, economic development, income distribution, labor relations, ethnic relationships and problems, the role of women, changes in education, population problems and Arab-Jewish relationships in Israel. Prominent writers from the United States and Israel--sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and administrative leaders--have participated in this extensive treatment of Israel's development. Of interest to all those concerned with economic modernization and political and social development, these original essays are packed with incisive analysis in jargon-free language. CONTENTS: Introduction-M. Curtis and M.S. Chertoff / URBAN AND INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT / Israel's New Frontier: the Urban Periphery-J. Matras / Local Government as an Integrating Factor in Israeli Society-D.J. Elazar / Development Towns in Israel-M.J. Aronoff / Urban Community Development in Israel-R.M. Kramer / Absorption of Soviet Immigrants-Z. Gitelman / THE KIBBUTZ TODAY / Some Reflections on the Kibbutz-B. Bettelheim / Utopia and the Kibbutz-M. Curtis / The Family in the Kibbutz: What Lessons for Us?-S. Keller / Worker Participation in Decision-Making in Kibbutz Industry-M. Rosner / The Industrial Process in Israeli Kibbutzim: Problems and Their Solutions-U. Leviatan / ECONOMIC AND LABOR DEVELOPMENT / Income Distribution and Economic Development: the Case of Israel-H. Pack / Income Inequality in Israel: Ethnic Aspects-O. Remba / On East-West Differences in Occupational Structure in Israel-Y. Ben-Porath / On the Economic Development of the Arab Region in Israel-F.M. Gottheil / Histadrut and Industrial Democracy in Israel: An Interpretive Essay, from an American Perspective-M. Derber / Histadrut: Myth and Reality-J.J. Loewenberg / ETHNIC RELATIONS AND PROBLEMS / Israel: Two Nations?-S. Avineri / The Israeli Dilemma-S.M. Lipset / Western and Oriental Culture in Israel-R. Patai / The Emerging Consciousness of the Ethnic Problem among the Jews of Israel-C.S. Heller / Time to Stir the Melting Pot-H. Toledano / SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL CHANGE / Pluralism in Israel Society-M. Lissak / Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: Ancient and Contemporary Perspectives on the Women of Israel-N. Datan / Education: the Social Challenge-E. Felled / "Reforming" Israeli Education--W. Ackerman / The Arab Israelis-R. Bastuni

Mordecai S. Chertoff

Papers

Israel: Social Structure and Change