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Examined marital dyad as family social system in which individual experiences stressors and coping. Investigated Antonovsky's salutogenic model and its core concept, sense of coherence (SOC). Data from 286 married Israeli retirees suggest, when one spouse has high SOC and other has low SOC, salutogenic versions of family SOC seems to be better predictor of adaptation than individual SOC. (Author/NB)

Considers retirement as widespread developmental transition. Seeks to exploit and advance Erikson's life cycle model by noting major transition challenges between generativity and integrity; distinguishing between tasks and outcomes in such transitions; and viewing such tasks as derived from historical, biological, psychological, and sociocultural realities. (Author/NB)

Examined attitudes toward retirement in 805 Israeli people on verge of retirement. The results pointed to importance of distinguishing between perceptions of gains and losses in retirement development transition; identification of blue-collar workers with ambivalent attitudes as a high-risk group; and importance of strong sense of coherence in adopting attitudes presumably functional in coping with this transition. (Author/ABL)

The human being is living in a world of rapidly increasing complexity. Modern society is composed of a network of roles, relationships and competitions of survival. A complex society necessarily entails conflict, tension and a continuing search for social coherence. If such conflicts are not controlled by norms and laws, chaotic conditions would result. Only when chaos is controlled can civility be achieved.

Previous work of the author presents a salutogenic theoretical model designed to explain maintenance or improvement of location on a health ease/dis-ease continuum. The model's core construct, the Sense of Coherence (SOC), was consciously formulated in terms which are thought to be applicable crossculturally. The SOC scale which operationalizes the construct is a 29-item semantic differential questionnaire, its design guided by Guttman's facet theory. A 13-item version of the scale has also been used. The purpose of the present paper is to present the extant evidence from studies conducted in 20 countries for the feasibility, reliability and validity of the scale, as well as normative data. In 26 studies using SOC-29 the Cronbach alpha measure of internal consistency has ranged from 0.82 to 0.95. The alphas of 16 studies using SOC-13 range from 0.74 to 0.91. The relatively few test-retest correlations show considerable stability, e.g. 0.54 over a 2-year period among retirees. The systematic procedure used in scale construction and examination of the final product by many colleagues points to a high level of content, face and consensual validity. The few data sets available point to a high level of construct validity. Criterion validity is examined by presenting correlational data between the SOC and measures in four domains: a global orientation to oneself and one's environment (19 r's); stressors (11 r's); health, illness and wellbeing (32 r's); attitudes and behavior (5 r's). The great majority of correlations are statistically significant. All available published normative data on SOC-29 and SOC-13 are presented, data which bear upon validity using the known groups technique. Finally, the factor structure of the scale is considered, pointing to one clear dominant factor.

Argues that the well-being movement and the mind-body studies pay undue attention to matters of personality and self and do not adequately acknowledge the social context of health and illness. Determinant of movement toward health; Link between the self and the environment; Importance of the study of the macrosocial in the understanding of movement toward health.

The article focuses on Israel's social structure, which is strongly influenced by two inseparable historical facts: the extraordinary role of immigration in the country's population growth, and the ethnic and cultural diversity of its immigrants. Hence studies of the social structure of Israel's Jewish population are generally based on analyses of the three major ethnic groups- the native born, immigrants from Europe and America, and immigrants from Asia and Africa, and measure the differential distribution of these groups on a wide range of socio-economic and demographic variables. The article refers to the pattern of intermarriage and how it is associated with the integration of ethnic groups. In contemporary society, formal education is generally regarded as the pathway to material rewards and certainly to prestige. Whatever the opportunities available in commerce or industry, in income terms, these are usually perceived as and often are second best. Formal education provides the prerequisite for social mobility in a technological society.

The authors review and evaluate the literature on the interview and other tools for the selection of medical students. They explain the goals of the selection process, which relies on the interview as the critical element of selection in the medical school of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel. The focus is on three issues: Who are the interviewers? What is the precise nature of the interview? What is the role of the interview evaluation in the final selection of students? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents information on social class and illness. That Great Britain displayed class differences in illness rates at least as late as 1951 was shown by a national survey. Here sick persons were relatively more numerous in the two lowest income brackets than in the other three. Moreover, the number of illnesses displayed even steeper inverse association with income; and days incapacitated as well as the number of medical consultations also showed linear inverse relationships with income. One must qualify any conclusion reached on the basis of a 1947 study in Newcastle upon river Tyne that the overwhelming majority of diseases, including tuberculosis, were not related to the social class of parents. This study referred to the first five years of life; and it must be noted first that over the five years, 53 per cent of the original class I families were lost to the study, compared to 33, 22, 23, and 13 per cent, respectively, of the other classes arranged in descending order. Most of the attrition resulted from moving outside of the region; quite conceivably, the families that moved contained the healthiest children.