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Academic Staff

KWOK Yan-shing, Henry

Assistant Professor

KWOK Yan-shing, Henry

BA, BEd (HKU), MPhil (Cambridge), PhD (Griffith)

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Professor Kwok is interested in the critical studies of education policy, curriculum reform, teacher education, and social justice and equity. In terms of research style, he is a strong advocate for breaking down disciplinary boundaries, in order to scratch beneath the surface of complex social reality. His academic work has been informed by a wide range of theoretical resources: anthropology, continental philosophy, cultural studies, science and technology studies, postcolonial studies, psychoanalysis and even theology. He asks, how can we retrieve the lost insights from the seemingly impractical social theory and philosophy, to open up new questions and therefore, reimagine educational research, pedagogic practice, and school leadership?

Professor Kwok is also an adjunct research fellow at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, on a long-term funded project in which university academics work and co-produce research with teachers, parents, and community organisations in a high poverty area in Queensland. Before that, he lectured at the Open University of Hong Kong (now Hong Kong Metropolitan University) and taught in two local secondary schools.

Research Interests
  • Education and Politics
  • Education Policy
  • Equity Education
  • Philosophy of Education
  • School and Community
  • Sociology of Education
Courses Taught
  • BECE 2210 Foundations of Education
  • EDUC 2220 Educational Thought
  • EDUC 2240 Understanding Schooling and Education Policy in Hong Kong
  • UGED 2682 Educational Thought
Recent Publications
  • Kwok, Henry and Parlo Singh. (forthcoming). ‘Making Sense and Use of Basil Bernstein’s Sociology of Education.’ In Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Education, edited by Allan Luke. New York City, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • Singh, Parlo, Henry Kwok, Andrew Barnes, and Stephen Heimans. (forthcoming). ‘Can Schools Still Institutionalise Democracy? A Sociological Reimagination’. Revue française de pédagogie.
  • Kwok, Henry. (2023). ‘Reframing Educational Governance and Its Crisis through the “Totally Pedagogised Society”’. Journal of Education Policy. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2022.2047227
  • Kwok, Henry, Parlo Singh, and Stephen Heimans. 2021. ‘The Regime of “Post-Truth”: COVID-19 and the Politics of Knowledge’. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2021.1965544.
  • Kwok, Henry. 2021. ‘In Between Distributive and Evaluative Rules: Paradox of Pedagogic (Mis-)governance’. British Journal of Sociology of Education. 42 (3): 388-403. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2021.1891021
Research Projects

Project title: Reducing Educational Disadvantage: Teaching Professionalism via Knowledge Collaboratories
Funding body: Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project (DP1910100518)
Chief Investigators: Professor Parlo Singh (Griffith University), Prof Beryl Exley (Griffith University) and Dr Stephen Heimans (The University of Queensland); Partner Investigator: Prof Gabrielle Ivinson (Manchester Metropolitan University, England, the United Kingdom)