Xia Li is a Research Associate at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools, where she plays a key role in the Research Alliance’s evaluation of NYC’s CS4All initiative.
Dr. Li has experience with a range of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, including regression analysis, event history analysis, interviews, and case studies. Her research interests center on structural inequality, poverty reduction, social class stratification, and policy analysis. She is interested in learning how public policies can effectively promote equity for marginalized groups. Her dissertation investigated variation in urban public-school enrollment eligibility requirements for migrant children in China.
Dr. Li’s work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Cities and Journal of Chinese Political Science. She has previously worked as an adjunct faculty member at Fordham University, an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University, and a teaching fellow at The New School. She also served as the principal investigator on a case study examining the use of digital tools by small businesses in the Hunts Point/Longwood section of the Bronx. Dr. Li’s passion for studying educational inequality derives from her experience tutoring migrant children in Beijing when she was in college. She has observed that while the education systems in the United States and China differ greatly, they are both characterized by deep segregation and structural inequality.
Xia Li holds a Ph.D. in Public and Urban Policy from The New School. Xia received her BA in Sociology from China Youth University of Political Studies, an MPA from Rutgers University, and an MA in Urban Planning and Management from Renmin University of China. Dr. Li is a fellow at Columbia China Center for Social Policy, the recipient of the 2019-2020 NYU Faculty First-Look scholarship, and the 2019 Equity and Inclusion Fellowship from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM)