Max Planck Postdoctoral Researcher (m/f/d) | TICA

[Mathematics Education Researchers (MER) community]

Teachers, Inequality and Collective Action (TICA)

Research group leader: Hania Sobhy

We are hiring

• Scientist (Application deadline: June 6, 2026, expected start date: Autumn 2026)
• Postdoc position (application deadline: 31.05.2026, expected start date: autumn 2026)
• PhD position (Application deadline: 31.05.2026, expected start: Autumn 2026)

The research group “Teachers, Inequality, and Collective Action” (TICA) investigates teachers as key actors in the current restructuring of public education. Teachers’ attitudes toward specific values ​​and how they convey these in the classroom have become increasingly urgent in light of intensive global transformations. While the education crisis in countries of the so-called “Global South” is widely acknowledged, concerns about stagnation and declining educational attainment are also prevalent in parts of the Global North. Due to underfunding, privatization, digitalization, and the erosion of liberal-democratic values, public education systems worldwide are under increasing pressure. Teachers are navigating these transformations against the backdrop of changing professional demands and evolving dynamics of collective advocacy and action. Nevertheless, teachers’ values, characteristics, and orientations toward these transformations remain inconsistent and insufficiently researched.

TICA investigates how teachers' social situation, political attitudes, and professional backgrounds shape their attitudes toward inequality and influence their actions. The project examines teachers' orientations as shaped by material, institutional, relational, and affective dynamics. The first line of inquiry explores how teachers perceive inequalities structured along lines of class, gender, migration background, language, and their intersectional aspects; how they explain the causes of these inequalities; and which political and teacher-led interventions they consider appropriate for addressing them. The second line of inquiry links teachers' profiles with their orientations toward collective advocacy and their participation in established and alternative forms of organization. The research also provides a descriptive account of how teachers perceive current changes in the education system and how these perceptions vary across cohorts and social and professional profiles. Finally, we examine the relationship between these diverse perceptions and teachers' values ​​and political ideology. Methodologically, the group combines institutional mapping, the analysis of survey results, and qualitative analysis.

TICA's empirical work is rooted in the Middle East and North Africa—a region that offers diverse and multifaceted manifestations of the forces transforming state-run schooling worldwide. Our workshops and research exchanges aim to foster a productive dialogue with scholars working on teacher policy, inequality, and collective action beyond the region.

TICA is part of the Max Planck network EduTrack , a six-year interdisciplinary research collaboration of several institutes on the future of education. The project is led by Population Europe, and the research is conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and the Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Sciences.

More: https://www.ips.mpg.de/10507/forschungsgruppe-teachers-inequality-and-collective-action-tica