He went on to work as a rural sociologist studying new immigrant communities with the Jewish Agency Land Settlement Department in the Negev Region.
[2] Shokeid felt that sociological research methods were too formal and abstract lacking cultural and human sensitivity, which compelled him to move into the field of anthropology.
During this time, he conducted his dissertation fieldwork in Israel, where he studied a village of Atlas Mountain Jews, for which he won the Ben-Zvi Prize in 1974.
[3] Shokeid has conducted research and published his work on North African immigrants in Israel and on the Arab residents who remained in Jaffa after the 1948 War.
[4] Shokeid has since published multiple works on the United States, including (during the 2000s) on the New York City gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Community Center in Greenwich Village and the various voluntary associations that met there.