EDUCATION

2015-2022 Tsinghua University

Ph.D. in Education

2019-2019 Institute of Education, University College London

Visiting Research Student

2011-2015 Beijing Normal University

B.A. in Education

TEACHING & RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

2024- Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University

Lecturer in School of Foundations in Education

2022-2024 Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University

Post-Doctorate in School of Foundations in Education

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Selected English Journal Articles:

Hu, X. (2025). Recontextualising powerful knowledge within an ‘organic unity’ of vertical and horizontal knowledge. Cambridge Journal of Education, 1–18. DOI: org/10.1080/0305764X.2024.2444451

Hu, X., & Wang, X. (2025). Teaching through ‘powerful knowledge’ in vocational higher education: tensions of ‘relational’ approaches in China. Teaching in Higher Education, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2025.2507256

Hu, X. and Wang, X. (2024). Symbolic violence or semiotic mediator? Examining the regulative order through school rituals in China. International Journal of Educational Research, 124, 102305. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijer.2023.102305. 

Hu, X. (2023). Towards a Sociology of Educational ‘Ideal’: Powerful Knowledge, Knowledge of the Powerful, and Beyond. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 45(01): 60–78. DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2023.2270166.

Hu, X. (2023). Powerful Disciplinary Boundary Crossing: Bernsteinian Explorations of the Problem of Knowledge in Interdisciplinarity. Curriculum Journal, 34(3): 472–486. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/curj.195

Selected Chinese Journal Articles:

Hu, X. (2025). Competence cannot compensate for society: the cult of competence in global education reform and its critique. International and Comparative Education, 427 (8): 41-50.

Hu, X. (2023). Educational knowledge and the distinctions between the sacred and the profane: from Durkheim to Bernstein, Chinese Journal of Sociology, 43(2): 184-209.

Hu, X. Xie, W. (2021). From ‘surface metaphor’ to ‘deep metaphor’: Basil Bernstein’s criticism of the New Sociology of Education. Educational Research, 503(12): 22-31/

SELECTED RESEARCH PROJECTS

l  Research on “Boundaries of Educational Knowledge”, post-founded Project of the National Social Science Fund of China (Project No.: 1251100017)

l  Research on “Knowledge Variables and Collaborative Models of High-Quality Curriculum in the New Era”, funded by National Project for Education Sciences Planning, Ministry of Education, China (Project No.: EAA230469)

l  Research on “Analyzing Curriculum Knowledge from the Social-epistemic Dual Perspective”, funded by the 74th Batch of China Postdoctoral Science Fund (Project No.: 2023M740293),

l  Research on “Knowledge Integration of High-Quality Curriculum from the dual-focus perspective of society and cognition”, funded by the 17th Batch of Special Funded Project of China Postdoctoral Science Fund (Project No.: 2024T170061)

TEACHING COURSES:

Foundations in education (for undergraduate students)

Academic writing and ethics (for graduate students)