HyoJung Jang

Dr. HyoJung Jang is an instructor for the Sejong Korea Scholars Program at the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE). She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Theory and Policy as well as in Comparative and International Education from Penn State University, and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University. Previously, HyoJung was a curriculum writer at SPICE, where she co-authored curriculum units on Korea and China, including Inter-Korean Relations: Rivalry, Reconciliation, and Reunification, China in Transition: Economic Development, Migration, and Education, and Colonial Korea in Historical Perspective.  

Prior to her current appointment at SPICE, HyoJung worked at the World Bank in the education sector for two years, supporting the efforts of the Ministry of Education of Laos in expanding the access to quality education for all children, particularly the most disadvantaged children in the poorest and remotest rural areas. Toward that end, she has conducted research and policy analysis on the basic education sub-sector in Laos, with a focus on gender, inclusive education, teacher professional development, and education financing, and collaborated with the Ministry and international stakeholders for policy reforms, strategy formulation, project design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation efforts. 

HyoJung’s academic research has been presented at national and international conferences, including the annual meetings of the Comparative and International Education Society in Washington D.C., Vancouver, Canada, Atlanta, Georgia, and Mexico City, Mexico, and the American Educational Research Association in Washington D.C. and New York, NY. 

HyoJung’s research agenda broadly centers on the relationship between broader institutional characteristics (e.g., school-, educational system-, and national-levels) and gaps in student achievement outcomes across gender and class. For instance, one of her earlier studies examining the relationship between the national-level gender egalitarian measure and the gender gap in mathematics achievement cross-nationally was presented at the highlighted session of the Large Scale Cross National Special Interest Group at the 2015 Comparative and International Education Society. Another key area of HyoJung’s research focuses on non-cognitive skills and achievement, and how broader institutional contexts shape that relationship. Her dissertation examined the relationship between a non-cognitive skill and academic achievement, showing how that relationship varies across more than 60 countries and what would explain the cross-national variation.    

HyoJung has led and presented at teacher seminars at Duke and Stanford Universities, as well as at the National Council for the Social Studies. She has also presented at the East Asia Regional Council of Schools in Thailand.