Tang T. Heng, EdD

Tang Heng is an assistant professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. By studying what happens when people and ideas circulate across borders, she highlights issues related to diversity and education through a comparative and international education lens. Her research on how Chinese international undergraduates experience U.S. college education compels her to advocate for the rejection of deficit perspectives of international students; instead, she argues for embracing more socioculturally attuned understanding of and engagement with (Chinese) international undergraduates as outlined in her award-winning research. 

In examining how Singapore teachers understand and adapt differentiated instruction, Tang Heng illuminates how agents interact with educational ideas traveling from the U.S. to Singapore. Throughout her research, she foregrounds the role sociocultural contexts play in shaping the values, motivations, and behaviors of learners/teachers, and how they adapt their values and behaviors according to different contextual expectations. 

Tang Heng graduated with an EdD in curriculum and teaching and MA in international educational development from Teachers College, Columbia University. She was conferred the Comparative and International Education Society’s Study Abroad and International Students SIG Early Career Award in 2019. Her research has been published in international, refereed journals including Teachers College Record, Journal of College Student Development, COMPARE: A Journal of Comparative and International Education and Cambridge Journal of Education.

Tang T. Heng received the 2021 Innovative Research in International Education Award for her research article, "Socioculturally attuned understanding of and engagement with Chinese international undergraduates."