Yossi Shavit /
Education Policy Program Chair

Yossi Shavit is the Weinberg professor of sociology at Tel Aviv University. He specializes in the study of stratification processes with an emphasis on education and educational policy. He is also studying ethnic relations and immigration. Currently, he is conducting (with Dr. Uri Shwed) a study of Arab-Jewish mixed schools in Israel. Under funding from the Jacobs Foundation, the study maps the social relations between Arab and Jewish students who attend mixed schools.
Shavit has also led several internationally comparative studies on social inequality. These include a study of stability and change in inequality of educational opportunity (Persistent Inequality, 1993); a study on country differences in the way young people make their way from school to the labor market (From School to Work, 1998), and on inequality in higher education (Stratification in Higher Education, 2007). He has also published many research papers on social inequality, ethnic relations and education in Israel and elsewhere.
Shavit completed his doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and won Alon and Spencer fellowships. He has previously served as Professor at the European University Institute and is a member of the prestigious Sociological Research Association. Until recently, he served as the President of the Israeli Sociological Association, and now heads the Taub Center’s Educational Policy Program.