In Israeli school culture, the school class is a social group in which "gibush" or cohesion is cultivated. A highly cohesive class has clearly demarcated boundaries, has high integration, is internally undifferentiated, and presupposes particular conditions for formation. The gibush model reflects an ideal of communal participation and…

A longitudinal ethnographic study of adolescent moral development in an Israeli kibbutz examined the process by which urban-born adolescents, "adopted" by the kibbutz, and their kibbutz-born peers are socialized into a cohesive group. Kibbutz educators support the development of democratic self-governing peer groups that foster community…