Dr. Christopher Hu

Assistant Professor of Social and Cultural Studies in Education, Educational Leadership, Policy, and Technology Studies


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Christopher Hu

EDUCATION

Ph.D.Education – Social FoundationsUniversity of Virginia
M.Ed.Educational Psychology – Social FoundationsUniversity of Virginia
B.S.Biochemistry (Minor in Education)Washington and Lee University

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AWARDS AND HONORS

YearAward
2025Gansneder Award for Most Outstanding Dissertation in Qualitative Research, University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development
2025Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Doctoral Fellowship
2024Taylor & Francis Past President’s Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Research, American Educational Studies Association (AESA)

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AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Sociology of education

Anthropology of education

Foundations of education


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RESEARCH INTERESTS

Race

Ethnicity

Immigration

Youth

Parenting


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HIGHLIGHTED PUBLICATIONS

  1. Hu, C., & Hoffman, D. M. (2025). Poverty and the brain: The new/old language of cultural deficit. Educational Researcher. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189×251349155
  2. Hu, C. (2023). Asian American racialization in America’s top-ranked public high schools: Synchronizing discourses of model minority and perpetual foreigner. Race Ethnicity and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2023.2279298 
  3. Hu, C. (2023). The purposes and pedagogies of social foundations in teacher education. Educational Studies, 59(5-6), 541-554. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2023.2271587 

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TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

Dr. Hu’s primary teaching aim is to help students understand education and schooling within its broader societal contexts. His approach is to guide students in reflection, analysis, critique, and evaluation of the purposes, goals, and aims of education.


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BIOGRAPHY

Christopher Hu, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Social and Cultural Studies in Education at The University of Alabama College of Education. He is an ethnographer whose research examines the intersections of race, immigration, and education with a focus on how minoritized communities navigate U.S. schooling and racial politics. His research centers youth, parents, and families in both in- and out-of-school contexts. He engages these topics through ethnographic, qualitative, and discourse analytic methods. He earned his Ph.D. in the social foundations of education from the University of Virginia. Prior to his doctoral studies, Hu was a high school chemistry teacher in Virginia.