Linda M. Pheng

Assistant Professor

Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems Division

Contact

pheng@upenn.edu

Media Inquiries:
Contact Penn GSE Communications.

Education

Ph.D. (Educational Policy Studies) University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2023
M.A. (International Education) University of Maryland, College Park, 2012
B.A. (Anthropology) University of Maryland, College Park, 2007
B.A. (History) University of Maryland, College Park, 2007

Areas of Expertise

Community-based education
Education of refugee and immigrant youth
Race, class, and stratification
Ethnographic research
Critical pedagogy
Asian/Southeast Asian American issues

Programs

Education, Culture, and Society M.S.Ed.

Education, Culture, and Society Ph.D.

Bio Nav

Biography

Professional Biography

Linda M. Pheng (pronounced ‘Peng’) is a Khmer American scholar and assistant professor with expertise in community-based education and critical youth work for youth of immigrant and refugee backgrounds. Dr. Pheng studies race and ethnicity, displacement and belonging, and movements and memory in the aftermath of forced migration. Specifically, her research aims to unpack how multiple and interlocking oppressions are experienced by working class Asian/Southeast Asian immigrant and refugee populations in formal and informal educational spaces. Prior to joining Penn GSE, Dr. Pheng has worked in nonprofit educational spaces in both the U.S. and Cambodia.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Pheng’s current research project is a book manuscript that asks the following question: “What are the processes through which Southeast Asian refugees transform spaces that treat them as foreign or temporary into a place of culture, identity, and belonging?” Employing an ethnographic approach, the study examines (1) how racialized and classed discourses of Asian immigrant and refugee identities shape students’ experiences of inclusion/exclusion in schools and beyond; (2) the processes through which students resist educational erasure in community-based educational spaces; and (3) the pedagogical practices utilized by community-based spaces in response to historical and ongoing configurations of displacement.

Publications

Selected Publications

Lee, S., & Pheng, L. (2022). Chapter 3: Invisibility and hypervisibility at University Heights High School. In Resisting Asian American invisibility: The politics of race and education. Teachers College Press.

Pheng, L., & Xiong, C. (2022). What is social justice research for Asian Americans?: Critical reflections on cross-racial and cross-ethnic coalition building in community-based educational spaces. Educational Studies.

Mac, J. Yi, V., Na, V., Thaviseth, L., Phommasa, M., & Pheng, L. (2021). The SEAAster Scholars Collective: A story of homemaking in academia." Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, 16(1).

Lee, S., Xiong, C., Pheng, L., & Vang, M. (2020). Asians for Black lives, not Asians for Asian lives: Building Southeast Asian and Black solidarity in community-based spaces. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 51(4), 405–421.

Lee, S., Xiong, C., Pheng, L., & Vang, M. (2017). The model minority maze: Hmong Americans working within and around racial discourses. Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, 12(2).

News & Media

Penn GSE News

Increasing the visibility of Southeast Asian students: A discussion with Linda Pheng

Pheng recently received the 2023 AESA Taylor & Francis Educational Studies Award for the Best Paper of the Year.

December 7, 2023