Mira Debs is a lecturer in Sociology and Education Studies.
Dr. Debs graduated from the University of Chicago, received a Rhodes Scholarship to complete an MPhil in European Politics and teacher training from Oxford University and a PhD in Sociology from Yale. Dr. Debs conducts research on urban education, comparative international education, parent involvement, school choice, and school integration in research locations including Copenhagen, New York City and Hartford, CT.
Research from her first book, Diverse Parents, Desirable Schools: Public Montessori in an Era of School Choice (Harvard Education Press, 2019) has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor. She is the co-editor of the Handbook on Montessori Education (Bloomsbury 2023).
Other research examines how groups form collective identity through objects, history and their children’s schooling including studies on school integration activism in New York City, Italian art and India’s independence struggle. Her work has been published in the American Journal of Education, Teachers College Record, the American Education Research Journal, Comparative Education, Research in Comparative and International Education, Cultural Sociology, Nations and Nationalism and the Journal of Montessori Research as well as in the New York Times, Ed Week, Washington Post,. Her research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the Brady Foundation and WEND Ventures.
Dr. Debs has taught in varied environments including high school, Wesleyan Universities and the McDougall Walker-Correctional Institution as part of the Yale Prison Education Initiative. She previously served as the director of the Education Studies program from 2017 to 2025.