Institute of Education

Research & Expertise to Make a Difference in Education & Beyond

The HSE Institute of Education is a leading interdisciplinary research centre specialising in the study of education systems, policies and practices. With a faculty of over 250 researchers and educators, including internationally renowned scholars, the Institute is a hub for high-impact research, teaching and policy engagement in education.

As part of its Strategy 2030, the Institute is developing into a world-class research school, focusing on understanding educational development and assessing the impact of educational policies. These priorities are reflected in the Institute’s key areas: 

— Artificial Intelligence in Education
— Well-being in Education
— Education and the Labour Market
— Instructional Design
— Comparative Analysis of Education Policy
— Management in Education

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News

From 13 to 21 May 2026, Alexey Obukhov, a Leading Expert at the Pinsky Centre of General and Extracurricular Education at the HSE Institute of Education, participated in a series of educational and professional events in Moulay Rachid youth complex in Bouznika, as part of the 2nd National Science Exhibition.
June 04
Researchers from the IOE Centre for Skills Development and Vocational Education published a new article titled “The Silent Frontier: Vocational Education and its Marginalization in the Sociology of Education”. In it, they explore why technical and vocational education and training (TVET) continues to occupy a marginal position within the sociology of education (SoE), despite its significant role in education systems and young people’s transitions into the labour market.
June 02
On 30 April, as part of its regular internal seminar series, the HSE Institute of Education featured a lecture by Professor Santosh Mehrotra on the transformation of qualifications and skills systems in India. The seminar brought colleagues together to discuss how changing approaches to qualifications and educational pathways might affect learner mobility and labour market opportunities.
May 27

Publications

  • Digital Economy: 2026 : Pocket Data Book

    This pocket data book contains the main indicators reflecting the relevance of digital technologies for enterprises and individuals, the activity of ICT sector enterprises, the infrastructure and personnel of the digital economy.

    The data book includes information of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, European Statistical Office (Eurostat), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), UNESCO, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and results of methodological and analytical studies of the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge.

    In some cases, the presented data specify those published earlier.

    M.: HSE ISSEK, 2026.

  • Article

    Iskakova B., Kosaretsky S., Zair-Bek S. I. et al.

    Education Policy and Urban-Rural Disparities in Schooling in Post-Soviet Countries

    The issue of urban-rural inequality is recognised as one of the most pressing and unresolved challenges, particularly in post-Soviet countries. This article examines territorial inequality in educational outcomes across seven post-Soviet countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Moldova, Georgia, and Kazakhstan. The study analyses how students’ PISA test scores vary by urban–rural location and investigates whether national educational policies, particularly school funding mechanisms and school network, have contributed to reducing or widening these disparities. Drawing on the generative theory of rurality, the study employs a mixed-methods design combining multilevel regression analysis of PISA 2009 and 2018 data with content analysis of national policy documents addressing post-Soviet educational reforms. The findings indicate a persistent and growing performance gap between urban and rural students, with the largest disparities observed in Moldova, Russia, and Lithuania. Rural location remains a statistically significant predictor of lower student achievement even after controlling for socio-economic and institutional variables. Estonia emerges as an exception, combining relatively high reading scores with a weak rurality gradient in 2018. The policy analysis suggests that per-capita and voucher-based funding mechanisms, together with large-scale school closures, have only weakly addressed the structural sources of rural disadvantage. The discussion highlights institutional and governance-related factors that may explain the limited effectiveness of these reforms and offers tentative recommendations concerning school funding design, teacher recruitment, and policy coordination in education. The article concludes by discussing study limitations and directions for future research.

    Journal of Economic Sociology. 2026. Vol. 27. No. 3. P. 99-128.

  • Book chapter

    Dvoretskaya I., Alexey Semenov, Uvarov A.

    Exploring Patterns of Information Literacy Development in Schools: Application of Multilevel Latent Class Analysis to School Students Survey Data

    While the literature on digital transformation in education has searched for evidence based practices to improve ICT uptake in school settings, we know little about how schools differ in their approaches. This study aims to overcome the absence of standardized tools that could help to assess the stages and progress of ICT integration in educational settings. By using the example of information literacy development tasks assignment in classroom, we applied a latent class analysis to the survey data obtained from the monitoring the digital transformation of schools in the 2020–21 academic year. Based on the survey data from monitoring the digital transformation of schools, four types of students’ patterns were identified, depending on the information skills tasks assigned to them by their teachers at school. Based on the distribution of students’ patterns of working with information, three typical patterns of schools were identified with the use of multilevel latent class analysis. This study provides evidence for how the development of information literacy differs across schools contexts. As with advent of digital technologies education becomes data intensive domain, new approaches to the big data analysis are encouraged and it can help educators and education policy makers to improve decision-making.

    In bk.: 26th International Conference, DAMDID/RCDL 2024, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, October 23–25, 2024, Revised Selected Papers. Data Analytics and Management in Data Intensive Domains. (CCIS, volume 2641). Springer, 2026. P. 253-266.

  • Working paper

    Antipkina I., Ivanov A., Guzhelya D.

    Explicit continuum scale format reduces the ceiling effect in self-report questionnaires comparing to Likert response format

    This study presents a methodology for developing a new questionnaire format called explicit continuum scenario scales, in the example of a client focus questionnaire. Elements of the Rasch Guttman scenario scale methodology were used in its development. In three consequent studies, different aspects of the scale functioning were investigated. In Study 1, on the sample of 100 respondents, it was shown that the explicit continuum scale produces reliable results and helps avoid the ceiling effect shown in the Likert response format version of the client focus questionnaire. In Study 2, the scale was administered in a competition environment, in a sample of 735 people. Despite the positive shift of scores, the instrument shows excellent psychometric characteristics and still resists the ceiling effect. In Study 3, new items were included, and the scale was presented in an interactive format. In the sample of 65,000 university students, it demonstrated the robustness of its psychometrics characteristics including dimensionality. The results of the three studies show that the explicit continuum format has the advantage of the stable dimensionality similar to the expanded format and is promising for measurement in social sciences.

    Basic research program. WP BRP. National Research University Higher School of Economics, 2024

All publications

Contacts

Email us: ioe_hse@hse.ru
  • Underground Stations: Lubyanka, Turgenevskaya, Chistye Prudy, Sretenskiy Bulvar.

Office of IOE Director Evgeniy Terentev:

+7 (495) 623-52-49.

Graduate School of Education:

Svetlana Zhuchkova
szhuchkova@hse.ru

International Affairs Office:

Maksim Nikitin
Tel: + 7 (495) 772-95-90, ext. 22928
menikitin@hse.ru