EDUCATION
| Degree | Area of Study | University |
|---|---|---|
| Ph.D. | Education – Social Foundations | University of Virginia |
| M.Ed. | Educational Psychology – Social Foundations | University of Virginia |
| B.S. | Biochemistry (Minor in Education) | Washington and Lee University |
AWARDS & HONORS
| Year | Award |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Gansneder Award for Most Outstanding Dissertation in Qualitative Research, University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development |
| 2025 | Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Doctoral Fellowship |
| 2024 | Taylor & Francis Past President’s Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Research, American Educational Studies Association (AESA) |
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Sociology of education
Foundations of education
Race and immigration
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Racialization in educational contexts
Asian Americans in education
Race and space
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Hu, C. (2025). Asian American racialization in America’s top-ranked public high schools: Synchronizing discourses of model minority and perpetual foreigner. Race Ethnicity and Education, 28(7), 1215-1229.
- Hu, C., & Hoffman, D. M. (2025). Poverty and the brain: The new/old language of cultural deficit. Educational Researcher, 54(9), 540-545. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189×251349155
- Hu, C., & Debnam, K. (2026). Navigating the politics of race, research, and role in a university-school district research-practice partnership. AERA Open, 12(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584261421546
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Dr. Hu’s primary teaching aim is to help students understand education and schooling within broader social and cultural contexts. His approach is to guide students in reflection, analysis, critique, and evaluation of the purposes and goals of education.
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. His research seeks to understand how youth, parents, and families experience and interpret processes of racialization in variety of educational 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.