The visible and invisible crises in Israeli higher education in the 90s

This study focuses on the Israeli experience of developing higher education as part of the expansion of a nation-building economic project. Educational development and the current crises are examined in the context of a particular history and a unique socioeconomic, political, and cultural experience. Nevertheless, the purpose of this research is to allow the drawing of meaningful inferences, so that researchers into other national cases might profit from the insight into the sources, both visible and less visible,for the "break in equilibrium" (Bourdieu's term) in the Israeli academy. At stake is the most characteristic feature of the old Israeli academic model, namely the conflation of the missions of teaching and research. To discover the present state of the research- teaching nexus, we examined faculty perceptions as reflected in a recent (1993) survey. This survey... allowed us to undertake some comparative analyses. The Israeli case-study, as well as the analysis of the International survey,shows that devotion to research and meeting teaching obligations, collaboration on research with others, obtaining funds for research, and scholarly publication have strong disciplinary relevance in the day-to-day shaping of academic life in all post- industrialized countries, Israel among them. (DIPF/Abstract übernommen)