Chenyu Wang

Chenyu Wang is an anthropologist of education. She is broadly interested in the intersection of politics and ethics through student activism and education reform efforts. Her first project considers the ways in which young people in China practice out-of-school programs for social change and its moral implication, and she is working on a second project on the experience of student activism in predominantly White colleges.

Her other research and teaching interests include the discourse of “diversity and inclusion,” critical pedagogy in global contexts, and comparative education.

Before joining Hamilton College, Wang was a research associate at the Center for Race and Public Education in the South at the University of Virginia, and she currently continues her work as a research affiliate with the Teachers in the Movement Project at UVA. At Hamilton, Wang teaches introductory courses in education studies, as well as courses on the anthropology of education, race, and international development.

Recent Courses Taught

Globalization and Education
Brown v. What? Race and Education in the United States
Ethnography and Education
The University
Anthropology of Education
Issues in Education

Select Publications

• Wang, C.(Online first). Learning to (depoliticize) critique: Critical knowledge and the formation of a new elite habitus in predominantly White institutions. Ethnography. https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381221110050
• Wang, C.(2022). Volunteering for “bitterness”: The self-fashioning power of volunteering teaching in rural China.Anthropological Quarterly, 95(1), 125-156. http://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2022.0003
• Wang, C. & Hoffman, D. (2021). The meanings of Blackness: Belonging and exclusion among African immigrant parents and students in US schools. Citizenship: Teaching and Learning, 16(3), 323-341. http://doi.org/10.1386/ctl_00059_1
• Wang, C.& Hoffman, D. M. (2016). Are WE the world? A critical reflection on selfhood and global citizenship education.Education Policy Analysis Archives, 24(56). http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.24.2152

Professional Experience

American Anthropological Association
American Educational Research Association
Comparative and International Education Society 
History of Education Society

Appointed to the Faculty

2019

Educational Background

Ph.D., University of Virginia
M.A., University of Maryland, College Park
B.A., University of International Relations