Designing for Resonance, Dissonance, and Expansive Thinking: An Anti-Colonial Systematic Review of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander K–12 Teacher Experiences
Project abstract: Despite the growing history of Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) teachers in the U.S., their perspectives and experiences as K–12 educators are underrepresented in mainstream research (Kim & Cooc, 2020; Shotton et al., 2012). Moreover, there are significant educational disparities within and between both communities, leading NHPI scholars to call for critical analyses of resonance and dissonance (Salis Reyes, 2016) between Asian Americans and NHPIs. This paper applies a critical race theory (CRT) in education framework (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017) and an NHPI worldview of the ocean in all of us put forth by Epeli Hauʻofa (1998) to design an anti-colonial literature review of Asian American and NHPI K–12 teachers’ experiences with race and racism in U.S. schools. Specifically, we show how the expansion of the “Pacific Islander” racial category into eight ethnic subgroups and the inclusion of doctoral dissertations as credible wisdom significantly expanded our data corpus from 77 before disaggregation and inclusion to 173 academic sources. By analyzing whose perspectives and voices inform Asian American and NHPI teacher literature, how those perspectives are gathered, analyzed, and disseminated, and what these perspectives reveal about the state of Asian American and NHPI teachers in the U.S. context, we contend that our review methodology intervenes on settler colonial attempts to minimize and replace NHPI perspectives by offering an alternative set of decisions that scholars can take up in their own work with Asian American and NHPI communities.
Research Collaborators
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Lillie Ko-Wong (she/her)
Graduate Research Associate
Hometown: Orange County, CA
Year: PhD Candidate
Major: Education Studies
School: UC San Diego
Research Interests: Racial equity in teacher preparation
Long-term College/Career Goal: Conduct research at the intersection of race and racism, policy, and organizational analyses in education.
What Drew Me to This Project: What drew me to this project is its commitment to advancing equity for the lived realities of AA&NHPI teachers.
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Willa Mei Kurland (she/her)
Graduate Research Associate
Year: PhD Candidate
Major: Education
School: UCLA School of Education & Information Studies
Research Interests: My research lies at the intersection of policy, practice, and organizational dynamics, exploring how policies and systems shape racial equity and organizational outcomes.
What Drew Me to This Project: I am particularly excited about how this project will expand and elevate the representation of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander teacher experiences both inside and outside of the classroom. Not to mention working with a great research team.
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Dongyang He (he/him)
Undergraduate Research Apprentice (Fall 2025)
Hometown: Sacramento, CA
Year: 3rd
Major: Sociology
School: UC Berkeley
Research Interests: I’m interested in exploring research within the education field, particularly focusing on the experiences of minority groups and the challenges they face in their professional careers. I also want to study how public policies can help create more equitable and supportive environments in schools, improving the overall education system for both teachers and students.
Long-term College/Career Goal: To become a school counselor or school social worker.
What Drew Me to This Project: I want to learn more about different minority groups and their experiences..
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Tabina Tariq (she/her)
Undergraduate Research Apprentice (Fall 2025)
Hometown: Rancho Palos Verdes, Los Angeles, CA
Year: 3rd
Major: English
School: UC Berkeley
Research Interests: Asian American, and specifically South Asian American, experiences in education and literature; postcolonialism; language and identity; representation of marginalized communities in K–12 education
Long-term College/Career Goal: To contribute to educational equity and representation through research, teaching, or policy, bridging scholarship and real-world impact.
What Drew Me to This Project: I was drawn to this project because the narratives of Asian American educators are often invisible in scholarship, and I want to illuminate how identity, language, and culture shape their experiences in ways that can inform more equitable education.
News & Publications
September 23, 2025 – Research team expands through UC Berkeley undergraduate research apprentice program (Dongyang He, Tabina Tariq).
July 1, 2025 – Research team (Kourtney Kawano, Lillie Ko-Wong, Willa Mei Kurland) begins preliminary literature search on relevant education databases through respective institutional library websites.