The word "miftan" means "threshold" in Hebrew. The Miftan as an educational framework was conceived in Israel as a response to the needs of marginal male youth who are about to drop out or who have dropped out of the regular school system. Currently 42 Miftanim are operating in that country. This report presents ethnographic data on three Israeli Miftanim--Miftan-Metro, Miftan Center-City, and Miftan-Orangedale. Chapter 1 examines processes by which pupils were referred to the Metro and Center-City Miftanim during 1976-77, and points out that each of these institutions used different approaches to recruitment and thus recruited somewhat different pupils. Chapters 2 through 6 look at Miftan-Metro in detail: aspects of socialization of two boys, the development of a social order independent of the institution's formal ideology, patterns of social relationships among the boys, conflicting approaches taken by different levels of staff (teachers vs. instructors), and problems among staff which hampered the implementation of the philosophy of the Miftan system. Chapters 7 through 9 deal with Miftan-Orangedale, discussing classroom behavior, workshop behavior, and staff relationships. Chapter 10 discusses Miftan Center-City, favorably comparing this institution to the other two. Chapter 11 highlights points of comparisons among the three Miftanim studied and discusses their implications for the Miftan system as a whole. Finally, Chapter 12 briefly reviews the ethnographic findings of this report in relation to more quantitative evaluation findings carried out in another phase of the Miftan research. (GC)