Dr. Qin's research centers on understanding and addressing inequality in and through language and literacy education of immigrant youth in U.S. schools. Drawing on critical race theories, gender studies, poststructuralist theories, decolonization theories, and discourse analysis, his work is driven by questions that lie at the intersections of language, pedagogy, identity, and justice. Dr. Qin's work features three interrelated research programs: (1) understanding the relationship of identity, gender, and racialization in immigrant students’ language learning, (2) examining equity-based instruction for immigrant students, and (3) advancing educational equity in language education and immigrant learner education through antiracist pedagogy and research.
Dr. Qin's current research project focuses on addressing inequalities through language education, particularly through anti-racist pedagogies and critical participatory action research with immigrant learners in K-12 classrooms and with their teachers. This project is supported with a 2022 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Dr. Qin's scholarship has been published in prominent peer-reviewed journals in language and literacy education, teacher education, and general education research, including The Modern Language Journal, Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, International Multilingual Research Journal, Beijing International Review of Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Urban Education.
To doctoral applicants: I am open to accepting new doctoral students in the 2026-2027 academic year.
Selected Publications
Refereed Journal Articles
Note: Author names are ordered by contribution, with the primary author listed first. Student co-authors are marked with an asterisk (*), and teacher co-authors with a pound (#).
Qin, K., Wolf, J#. & Llosa, L. (2025). From everyday language to disciplinary discourse: Culturally and linguistically sustaining dialogic instruction with multilingual learners. TESOL Journal. 16(1). 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.913
Beauchemin, F., Krone, B., Machado, E. Qin, K., Valauri, A. & Hartman, P. (2025). Towards a theory of transgressive classroom language. Linguistics and Education. 85(2025), 101356. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2024.101356
Qin, K. & Llosa, L. (2023). Translingual caring and translingual aggression: (Re)centering criticality in the research and practice of translanguaging pedagogy. The Modern Language Journal. 107(3), 713-733. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12868 (This article, selected as one of the best published in The Modern Language Journal (MLJ), received the award The Best of MLJ for 2023.)
Beauchemin, F. & Qin, K. (2023). Bilingual teachers and young children co-constructing affect and play in translanguaging read-alouds. English Teaching: Practice and Critique. 22(2). 191-207. https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-08-2022-0113
Qin, K. & Beauchemin, F. (2022). “I can do slapsticks”: Humor as humanizing pedagogy for science instruction with multilingual adolescent immigrant learners. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1177/23813377221114766
Liao, W., Liu, M., Wang, Z. & Qin, K. (2022). How critical thinking influences teachers’ professional development: Chinese expert teachers’ perspectives. Professional Development in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2022.2097290
Qin, K., Colomer, S., Yu, L.*, & Cole, C.* (2022). Understanding Chinese immigrant parents’ academic expectations and engagement in school through a lens of AsianCrit. Urban Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859221089551
Li, G. & Qin, K. (2022). Supporting and advocating for immigrant and refugee students and families in America’s urban schools: Educators’ agency and practices in everyday instruction. Urban Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859221082671
Qin, K. & Beauchemin, F. (2022). “Everybody has to be with everybody”: Languaging relational and intellectual work with multilingual learners in a science classroom community. Linguistics and Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2022.10101
Qin, K. (2021). Toward a decolonizing framework for equity-oriented English language teacher education. Beijing International Review of Education. 3, 328-349. https://doi.org/10.1163/25902539-03030007
Liao, W., Wang, X.*, & Qin, K. (2021). Learning to become culturally responsive teacher educators in an internationalized doctoral course: A video-cued interpretive study. Teaching and Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103339
Qin, K. (2020). Curriculum as a discursive and performative space for subjectivity and learning: Understanding immigrant boys’ language use in classroom discourse. The Modern Language Journal. 104(4), 842-859. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12675 (This article, selected as one of the best published in The Modern Language Journal (MLJ), received the award The Best of MLJ for 2020.)
Qin, K. & Li, G. (2020). Understanding immigrant youth’s negotiation of racialized masculinity in one U.S. high school: An intersectionality lens on race, gender, and language. Sexuality and Culture. 24(4), 1046-1063. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-020-09751-3
Qin, K. (2019). Performing curriculum and constructing identities: Small stories as a framework for studying identity and interaction in classroom discourses. International Multilingual Research Journal, 14(3), 185-191. https://doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2019.1623638
Qin, K. (2019). Citations of norms and lines of flight in one immigrant boy’s performances of masculinities and reading identities. Reading Research Quarterly, 54(3), 363-382. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.239
- Qin, K. (2018). “Doing funny” and performing masculinity: An immigrant adolescent boy’s identity negotiation and language learning in one US ESL classroom. Research in the Teaching of English, 52(4), 427-454.
Book Chapters
Qin, K. & Li, G. (2025). Toward a framework of antiracist teacher education for multilingual learners. In H. Hong & A. C. da Silva (Eds.), Empowering Multilingual Learners: Innovative Approaches to Foster Equity and Inclusivity in Teacher Education. Routledge.
Qin, K. (2021). Bridging east and west: Dr. Guofang Li’s success as a transnational scholar in language and literacy education in North America. In H. Nicholas, D. Ball & K. Wells (Eds.), Asian American scholars of education: 21st Century pedagogies, perspectives, and experiences (pp. 1-10). Peter Lang.
- De Costa, P.I., & Qin, K. (2016). English language education in the United States: Past, present and future issues. In L.T. Wong & A. Dubey-Jhaveri (Eds.), English language education in a global world: Practices, issues, and challenges (pp. 229-238). Nova Science Publishers.
Book Reviews
- Qin, K. (2017). [Review of the book Power and Meaning Making in an EAP Classroom: Engaging with the Everyday, by C. W. Chun]. Discourse and Society, 28(2), 317-318.
Media and Public Scholarship
- Bridging Research to Practice Interview with Reading Research Quarterly co-editor Dr. Amanda Goodwin on immigrant adolescents’ performances of masculinities and their reading identities.)
