Campus Directory

Pronouns she, her, her, hers, herself

Division Social Sciences Division

Department/College/Unit Education Department

Title Assistant Professor of Critical Studies in Education

Affiliation Faculty

Other UCSC Campus Affiliation Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

Faculty Type Regular Faculty

Primary Office Location McHenry Library
3163

Mail Stop Education Department

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D. Education, University of California, Los Angeles  

M.A. Education, California teaching credential in secondary English, Stanford University

B.A. English Education, concentration in Child & Adolescent Development, San Jose State University

Summary of Expertise

Co-Design Research; Critical Discourse Analysis; Embodiment; Interactional Analysis; Multimodal Methodology; Pedagogy; Race, Racialization, Racial Literacy; Teachers of Color; Teacher Learning & Teacher Education; Video Ethnography

Research Interests

Dr. Josephine H. Pham served as a K-12 teacher in her own communities, as a teacher educator in Los Angeles and Orange County, CA communities, and as an assistant professor at CSU Fullerton before joining UCSC. Drawing upon critical social theories of race and methodological tools from literacy, learning sciences, and educational anthropology, Pham’s interdisciplinary research blends counternarratives, video ethnography, and the arts to examine the micro-interactional processes of social reproduction and social transformation in everyday life of educational contexts. Her program of research explores three interrelated stands of inquiry, which include: (1) the pedagogical and leadership practices of justice-centered teachers of color, (2) teacher education and professional development, and (3) co-design approaches to research that are attuned with the daily livelihood, wellness, and aspirations of communities of color and other marginalized groups. 

Awards, Honors and Grants

National Academy of Education / Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2024

Research Development Award, National Academy of Education / Spencer Foundation, 2023

Hellman Fellowship, UCSC, 2023-2024

Sprout Grants Faculty Fellowship, UCSC Institute for Social Transformation, 2022

Cultivating New Voices (CNV) among Scholars of Color Fellowship, Research Foundation of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), 2020-2022

Concha Delgado Gaitán Early Career Presidential Fellowship, Council of Anthropolology in Education (CAE) of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), 2020

Curriculum Inquiry Writing Fellowship, Curriculum Inquiry Journal, 2020

Outstanding Dissertation Award, American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division K: Teaching and Teacher Education, 2020

Outstanding Dissertation Award, UCLA School of Education & Information Studies, 2019

Selected Publications

• Pham, J.H. & Ho, E.S-Y. (2025). Trung’s Ethnic Studies Pedagogy: The Possibilities and Struggles of Teaching Ethnic Studies in K-12 Schools. Ethnic Studies Pedagogies Journal, 3(1). https://www.ethnicstudiespedagogies.org/
• Pham, J.H, & Trazo, T. A. (2025). “I’ll walk out if you walk out”: A comic on how students of color utilize racial micropolitical literacy in their everyday lives. Occasional Paper Series, (53). DOI: https://doi.org/10.58295/2375-3668.1546
• Pham, J. H., Vita, K., & Nyachae, T. M. (2024). Pedagogies of collective intersectional care: Witnessing the spiritual and affective rigor of carework within daily classroom life. Race Ethnicity and Education, 27(3), 394–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2024.2324237 
• Nyachae, T.M. & Pham, J.H. (2024). Educating with collective intersectional care: Attending to, embodying, and enacting women of color feminisms in learning spaces. In P.A. Schutz and K. Muris (Eds.) Handbook of Educational Psychology (4th ed.) (pp. 458-479). Routledge. 
• Pham, J.H. (2024). Orchestrating critical race talk towards institutional change. Journal of Language, Identity, & Education. 23(4), 482-497. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2021.1997604
• Lee, D. & Pham, J.H. (2022). Ethnic studies in teacher education: A transformative programmatic approach to centering the experiences of teacher candidates of color. In C.D. Gist and T.J. Bristol (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers (pp. 215-232). Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association. 
• Pour-Khorshid, F., Navarro, O., Nyachae, T., & Pham, J.H. (2022). Engaging intersectional praxes: A catalyst for collective vulnerability and liberatory learning. In C.D. Gist and T.J. Bristol (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers (pp. 601-617). Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association.
• Pham, J.H. (2022). Racial micropolitical literacy: Examining the sociopolitical realities of teachers of color co-constructing student transformational resistance. Curriculum Inquiry, 52(5)-518-543. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2022.2042162
• Philip, T.M., Pham, J.H., Scott, M., & Cortéz, A. (2022). Intentionally addressing nested systems of power in schooling through teacher solidarity co-design. Cognition & Instruction, 40(1), 55-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2021.2010208 
• Pham, J.H. (2022). Teacher leadership for love, solidarity, and justice: The invisibilized and contested practices of teacher leaders of color. Journal of Teacher Education, 73(1), 81-96. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871211051990  
• Pham, J.H. & Philip, T.M.(2021). Shifting education reform towards anti-racist and intersectional visions of justice: A study of pedagogies of organizing by a teacher of color. Journal of Learning Sciences, 30(1), 27-51. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2020.1768098 
• Pham, J.H., Philip, T.M., & Kohan, A. (2021). Pedagogies of organizing. Sequentials, 2(1). https://www.sequentialsjournal.net/issues/issue2.1/phamphilip.html
• Pham, J.H. (2018). New programmatic possibilities: (Re)positioning teachers of color as experts in their own learning. Teacher Education Quarterly, 45(4), 51-71.