PhD Candidate in the Educational Foundations Department at Montclair State University
Sharon Lai-LaGrotteria is an international scholar from Hong Kong and Singapore. She began her academic journey at the University of Hong Kong as a Jockey Club Scholar, earning her Bachelor’s in English with First Class Honors and Master’s in Education with Distinction, then continued to complete her Graduate Degree in Applied Linguistics at the University of Oxford.
Prior to joining Montclair State University as a Doctoral Fellow, Sharon served as an adjunct professor at the Jack Welch School of Business at Sacred Heart University, while concurrently holding writing seminars for first-year immigrant students at Monroe College in New York. An educator at heart, Sharon has taught at a wide range of schools, from preschool to higher education, both private and public, spanning from Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, to Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. She also served as the Chief Education Director of Young Writers, a learning cooperative center established in 1997 with the mission of serving English learners in Southeast Asia. As a first-gen college graduate with humble upbringing, Sharon is a huge advocate for Asian and Asian American communities. She is a volunteer teacher at the Chinese Community Center, where she teaches Cantonese to heritage speakers and organizes community events for Chinese families across New Jersey.
During the early stage of her research career, Sharon focused heavily on inclusive education, English language education, and culturally relevant pedagogy, where she conducted qualitative studies on the implementation of inclusive education in kindergartens, language teacher identity, and the use of drama as an example of culturally relevant pedagogy for English learners. Her work was published in various journals, including Action in Teacher Education, Journal of Religion and Health, and Journal of Loss and Trauma. She has presented at local and international conferences, including the AERA Annual Meetings over the last three years, and Redesigning Pedagogy Conference at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. As she continues to witness the troubling escalation of deadly violence against Asian communities across the country, Sharon’s research interests became more centered on policy perspectives and curriculum implementation concerning Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI).
Sharon’s dissertation research grew out of her experiences witnessing the troubling escalation of deadly violence against AAPI individuals in New York City during the pandemic. In pursuing meaningful ways of creating change for AAPI students in US schools, she extensively reviewed literature on AAPI history, spoke with district and school administrators, and collaborated with various advocacy groups to gather in-depth ethnographic data regarding the implementation of AAPI-inclusive curriculum across New Jersey. Given different state policies pertaining to the teaching of AAPI history across many parts of the States, this study will provide timely and novel insights related to how teachers enact this curriculum in K-12 classrooms. Engaging quantitative and qualitative methods, this study aims to explore broader trends across the state through the use of a teacher survey and case studies of individual teachers’ implementation. Beyond documenting the need for culturally responsive approaches, this study hopes to offer insights into the constraints and possibilities different stakeholders (teachers, school administrators, and policymakers) encounter when enacting curricular changes and implementing state mandates.