Managing the Risks of Schooling, Securing Middle-Class Belonging: Russian, Palestinian, and Jewish Mothers in Israel

A major sphere of action in which parents engage in the management of risk on behalf of their children—primarily through the gendered work of mothering—is that of education and schooling. This article explores the endeavors on the part of middle-class Israeli mothers hailing from three social-cultural groups—immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Palestinian Israelis, and Jewish Israelis—to manage the risks of schooling, as they perceive these to be. We ask: What do the women share, and how do they differ in their understandings of the failings of school and the risks attached? How do they choose to act in response to these perceived risks? In posing these questions, we seek to explore the ways in which the perception of risk, the experience of anxiety, and the navigation of schooling are shaped at the nexus of class, culture, and social positioning.