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KOH Soon Lee, Aaron

Associate Professor

KOH Soon Lee, Aaron

BA (1st Class Honours) (Murdoch), PGDE (Distinction) (NIE, S'pore), PhD (Queensland)

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Aaron Koh completed his PhD in Education at the University of Queensland, Australia. He also has a First Class Honours in English & Comparative Literature from Murdoch University and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (with Distinction) from the National Institute of Education (NIE) Singapore specializing in English Language and Literature teaching. He previously taught at Monash University, National Institute of Education and Education University of Hong Kong.

His research focuses on global studies in education, cultural politics of education, education systems in Asia Pacific region; sociology of education (with expertise in elite schooling); cultural studies in education; critical literacy & multiliteracies and qualitative research methods (with expertise in ethnography, critical discourse analysis and visual methodology).

He has published in top-tier SSCI journals such as Journal of Education Policy, British Journal of Sociology of Education, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Curriculum Inquiry, Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, Globalisation, Societies, & Education Journal of Sociology, Oxford Review of Education, Globalizations, and Asia Pacific Journal of Education. His published books include one monograph, Tactical Globalization: Learning from the Singapore Experiment (Peter Lang, 2010), three edited books, Education in a global city: The manufacturing of education in Singapore (Routledge, 2016), Elite schools: Multiple geographies of privilege (Routledge, 2016) and New Sociologies of elite schooling: Theoretical, methodological and empirical explorations. (Routledge, 2017).

His most recent co-authored book, Class choreographies: Elite schools and globalization (Palgrave, 2017) won two international book prizes, the Comparative and International Education Society, Globalisation and Education (CIES) SIG Best Book Prize, 2018 and Society for Education Studies Routledge Book Prize, 2018. He was the recipient of the CUHK Faculty of Education Exemplary Teaching Award in 2017.

Aaron Koh is the new Editor of the International Studies in Sociology of Education (http://tiny.cc/qqsmcz) together with Laura Engel (George Washington University), Claire Maxwell (University of Copenhagen), and Miri Yemini (University of Tel Aviv). The journal focuses on publishing high quality papers, that examine critical issues in education, authored by scholars working around the world. We aim to encourage research that moves across borders and disciplinary boundaries.

He is also the Co-Founding Editor (with Victoria Carrington, University of Tasmania) of Cultural Studies & Transdisciplinarity in Education Book Series (Scopus Index): https://www.springer.com/series/11200. This book series seeks to foreground transdisciplinary and cultural studies influenced scholarship with a view to building conversations, ideas and sustainable networks of knowledge that may prove crucial to the ongoing development and relevance of the field of educational studies.

He is on the Editorial Board of:

  1. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education (Francis & Taylor, Routledge; SSCI Impact Factor: 1.721)
  2. Curriculum Inquiry (Francis & Taylor, Routledge; SSCI Impact Factor: 0.981)
  3. Educational Review (Francis & Taylor, Routledge; SSCI Impact Factor: 1.730)
  4. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (Wiley-Blackwell, SSCI Impact Factor: 1.25)
  5. Journal of Curriculum & Pedagogy (Francis & Taylor, Routledge)
Research Interests
  • Education and Development
  • Education and Politics
  • Education Ethnography
  • Education Policy
  • Qualitative Methods
  • Sociology of Education
Courses Taught
Recent Publications
  • Maxwell, C., Yemini, M., Koh, A., & Agbaria, A. (2019). The mult-plurality of the Global Middle Class(es) and their school choices – moving the ‘field’ forward empirically and theoretically. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 40(6): 1-10.
  • Koh, A. (2019). Travelling with and teaching Critical Literacy in Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong. A call for Postcritique. Curriculum Inquiry, 49(2): 203-216.
  • Koh, A. (2019). Multi-sited global ethnography of elite schools. In G. W. Noblit (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Education. Oxford University Press. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.322
  • Koh, A. (2018). Subterfuge hegemony: The simmering politics of the shelved Hong Kong moral and national education debates in the media. Curriculum Inquiry, 48(2), 149-166.
  • Koh, A. (2018). Youth mobilities in elite schools: Elite circuit, reflexive youth biographies and their mobility blips. Applied Mobilities, 3(2):184-197.
  • Koh, A. (2018). “Inter-referencing ” as methodology: The ” emotional contagion ” of PISA and the discursive formation of an emergent East Asia policy field. In K. Kennedy and J. C.-K. Lee (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Schools and Schooling in Asia (pp.44-57). London: Routledge.
  • Kenway, J., Fahey, J., Epstein, D., Koh, A., McCarthy, C. & Rizvi, F. (2018). Multi-sited global ethnography and elite schools: a methodological entrée. In D. Beach, C. Bagley and S. M. da Silva (Eds.), The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography and Education (pp.423-442). Wiley-Blackwell.
Other Link

A. Book Series: Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education www.springer.com/series/11200 B. Elite Independent Schools in Globalising Circumstances: A Global Multi-Sited Ethnography http://www.monash.edu/education/research/projects/category-1/arc-decra/elite-independent-schools-in-globalising-circumstances C. Academia.edu https://orientalecom7.academia.edu/AaronKoh/Analytics#/activity/overview?_k=6b91qt