The Center for the Study of Society was established in the mid 90's as "The Minerva Center for Youth Studies" following an endowment from the Minerva Foundation in Germany to pursue a longitudinal youth study. After 10 years the Youth Study project ended. In 2006 the name of the center changed to The Center for the Study of Society to better reflect the scope of research at the center.
Over the years the center has been involved in a variety of studies of juveniles and family.
Over the years, the main topics that the research fellows have been engaged in included: family violence and escalation of violence, sexual abuse and trauma, longitudinal study of violence in Israel over the last 25 years, political socialization of youth, attitudes and leisure activities of youth, internet and social relations, Judicial behavior and the effect of nationality on sentencing, acculturation of adolescent immigrants.
Much of the work at the Center included a comparative research done in collaboration with German scholars from the University of Potsdam, the University of Jena and the University of Bielefeld. The Center is also closely collaborating with the Center for the Study of Crime Law and Society on various research projects.
The center has been awarded over the years a large number of research grants, among others, by BMBF (the Federal Ministry of Education and Research), DFG (German Research Foundation), the DIP (German Israeli Project Cooperation), ISF (the Israel Science Foundation), Israel United Found for Education, Marshal Fund, the Minerva Foundation, the Israeli Ministry of Labor and Welfare, the Israeli Ministry of Science, the National Insurance Institute of Israel, and the U.S. Israel Bi National Foundation.
The Center continues its research in the areas of crime and violence, domestic violence, trauma, child abuse, the justice system, immigration, minority-majority social conflicts, social inequality and poverty, youth and the internet, family relationships in later life & intergenerational relationships.