(Publishing name: Tatiana Khavenson)
Short biography
Dr. Tanya Khavenson holds a BA and MA in sociology and earned her PhD in education from HSE University in Moscow, Russia. Her doctoral thesis, titled “Methodology of using large-scale assessment studies in education for educational policy,” was completed under the supervision of Professor Martin Carnoy from Stanford University. Before joining the Technion, she spent fifteen years as a tenure-track faculty member, first in the Sociology department and then, from 2012, at the Institute of Education at HSE University in Moscow, Russia, where she also served as Dean of the Graduate School from 2019 to 2022. She concluded her tenure at HSE University at the end of 2022 as an Associate Professor. Since Tanya joined the Technion in 2023, she has been deeply involved in ongoing projects at the People and Planet Lab while also mentoring postdoctoral and PhD students.
In her previous research, Dr. Khavenson worked extensively with national and international large-scale assessment studies, including TIMSS, PISA, NCES, and SAEB. She has explored how social institutions circumscribe students’ educational trajectories, driving inequality in school performance and access to higher education. Alongside this, her scholarship has investigated the diverse factors, ranging from personal beliefs to school contexts, that facilitate or constrain the acceptance of new educational technologies and pedagogies, as well as the socioeconomic drivers underlying these processes. This extensive body of work on educational inequality has been widely disseminated in international journals, including Social Forces, Comparative Education Review, and the British Journal of Sociology of Education.
Research areas
Tanya Khavenson is a comparative education researcher with expertise spanning sociological and policy perspectives on education. Her research focuses on how contemporary educational landscapes are reshaped by social, geopolitical, and technological trends across diverse socioeconomic contexts.
Social sensitivity of science education. Dr. Khavenson investigates how a continuous stream of exogenous and endogenous changes shapes the educational and civic opportunities of diverse student populations within multicultural and socioeconomically complex environments. By revealing how teachers and the broader school environment perceive and translate technological and social innovations into daily classroom practice, her research identifies the range of factors that facilitate or constrain this translation. Ultimately, her work addresses a critical question for modern schooling: how can educational policies remain effective and equitable across diverse socio-cultural contexts in a world of constant change?
Youth agency and civic participation. Researching youth empowerment through the lens of activism and citizenship, Tanya identifies the opportunities and barriers that shape how young people from underserved communities engage with and are recognised as equal civic participants. Her work explores the attitudes and practices of youth activism alongside the educational scaffolding necessary to foster informed, sustainable and inclusive active citizenship.
Health education. She explores the intersection of health and education. By identifying the fragmented understanding of youth health among stakeholders across varied domains, she foregrounds a more holistic approach aimed at bridging these divides. Her research specifically investigates the agency that young people exercise within these health-related contexts. Ultimately, this work advocates for a more profound and equal dialogue between the spheres of health and education to better support school-aged youth.
Her recent findings are published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Review, and Review of Educational Research.
Participating in projects: STUDACT, Health & Education
Hobby: hiking, swimming
