Areas of Interest

Sociology of education; gender and education; child and youth studies; educational equity.

I am an Associate Professor with Special Appointment at Shanghai Normal University. I hold a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. My research explores how education and society interact to shape the experiences of marginalized students, and how schools might better support them. I am particularly interested in forms of marginalization that emerge at the intersection of rurality, gender, ethnicity, and class in the Chinese context.

My current work engages interdisciplinary frameworks, drawing on critical, cultural, gender, and decolonial theories to examine the structural and everyday dimensions of educational inequality. Through ethnographic and other qualitative methods, I seek to understand how students and teachers navigate educational systems and how their voices and experiences can inform more inclusive and responsive educational practices.

Selected Publications

Yu, M., & Wang, W. (2025). Dialogue of the nearby: Comforting reflexivity in educational ethnographers’ decolonial “world”-traveling. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 0(0), 1–19. DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2025.2601567

Wang, W. & Feng, R. (2025). Quietly practicing gender-friendly education: A middle school teacher's negotiation of feminist identity and gender equity in China. Teaching and Teacher Education, 0(0), 1-10. DOI: 10.1016/j.tate.2025.105154

Wang, W. (2023). ‘Not learning’ in a learning space: Spatializing embodied experiences of rural Chinese youth. Journal of Youth Studies, 26(7), 843-858. DOI: 10.1080/13676261.2022.2053665

Du, L., Li, H., & Wang, W. (2020). Rural education in China. In G. Noblit (Ed). Oxford research encyclopedia of education. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wang, W. (2019). Foregrounding intersectionality in rural youth’s schooling experiences in China. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. 32(7): 947-961. 

Wang, W., & Du, L. (2018). Education of ethnic minorities in China. In M. A. Peters (Eds). Encyclopedia of educational philosophy and theory. Singapore: Springer Singapore. 

Qualitative Research in Education (Undergraduate & Ed.D)

Foundations of Education

Current Issues in School Reform

Seminar on Classic Works in Education

Best Paper Award, CIES East Asia SIG (2026)

Best Graduate Student Paper Award, CIES East Asia SIG (2024)

Outstanding Graduate Student Research Paper Award, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota (2019)