Abstract
Establishment of middle schools, since the early 1970s’, was one of the largest reforms in the Israeli education system. The reform aimed to increase scholastic achievements, especially of weak-background students, and to reduce the education gaps between students from different socio-economic and ethnic background. To achieve those, a newly established schooling level at the beginning of adolescence was established – specifically designed to increase socio-economic integration in schools.
A unique database, that covers the reform's gradual implementation over time and region, serves to identify its long term effects on first generation students, and the inter-generational effect on their children.
We find that the reform had no first-generation effects on acquiring education, employment and wages, marriage and childbirth patterns, as well as religiosity. Additionally, no second generation educational effects were found. Those results may apparently be attributed to the low integration created by the reform.