Congratulations to Tatyana Larkina on the successful defense of her PhD dissertation!

On October 9, 2025, Tatyana Yuryevna Larkina, a junior research fellow at the International Laboratory for Social Integration Research (ILSIR) at the National Research University, Higher School of Economics, defended her PhD dissertation on "Discretion in the Work of School Teachers in Russia."

Tatyana's dissertation was submitted for the degree of Candidate of Sociological Sciences. Her supervisor is  Vladimir Gennadyevich Nikolaev , Candidate of Sociological Sciences .

Tatyana's dissertation explores Russian teachers' discretion in the spirit of the Chicago sociological tradition, embedding it within a current debate about the functioning of state bureaucracies and the changing power structures of professionals. It considers the ceremonial dimension of school teachers' work, allowing for a new perspective on the emerging gap between the design of educational policy and its implementation at the level of an individual school or classroom. In this regard, it also establishes that school administrators face unique ceremonial tensions arising from their borderline position—both technical and dramatic. Furthermore, the dissertation's findings challenge the thesis that Russian teachers are exclusively antagonistic to the bureaucratically structured environment of general education—teachers use elements of this environment to legitimize decisions made at their own discretion.

The text of the dissertation and other materials on the defense can be found at the link

Congratulations to Tatyana and Vladimir Gennadievich on receiving high marks and valuable comments from the Dissertation Defense Committee and on the successful defense of their dissertation research!