Prof Heidi A Ross

School of Education, Indiana University & Director, East Asian Studies Center

I am Director of the East Asian Studies Center and Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University.  I earned my B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature at Oberlin College, an M.A. in Education/Applied Linguistics at the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Administration at the University of Michigan.  I have taught and consulted at numerous institutions in East Asia, have served as president of the Comparative and International Education Society, as co-editor of Comparative Education Review, and Chair of Educational Studies and Director of Asian Studies at Colgate University.  I have published widely on Chinese education, gender and schooling, and qualitative research methodology, and my books include China Learns English (Yale), The Ethnographic Eye (Garland), and Taking Teaching Seriously (Paradigm).  I am currently leading two field-based projects in the PRC on student engagement in Chinese higher education and girls’ educational access and attainment in rural Shaanxi.  I regularly co-present conference papers and co-author articles with colleagues and students.  I have also partnered with the University of Illinois to establish the IL/IN East Asian Education Network Dissertation Workshop.  Our two schools have co-hosted four workshops, giving doctoral students from other universities the chance to present their research and to get feedback and support.

One of the most important characteristics of my approach to scholarship and teaching is collaboration.  The longer I am in academe the more I have felt that living as a scholar, teacher, and occasional administrator demands vigilance about the ends of education, to understand what is crucial to our work—and what we are willing to give up.  I realize the two things I can’t give up are collaboration and inter-disciplinary research.  Both are crucial to my health as a scholar and human being.  Trying to redress problems collaboratively, comparatively, and globally—well, that is a kind of hope in the possibility of taking a journey of solidarity.