Dr Yue Zhou PhD, FHEA

Dr Yue Zhou

Assistant Professor

Contact details

Address
School of Education
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Yue Zhou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education and Social Justice. Her research explores multilingualism, identity, and learner well-being, with a focus on heritage language education and the experiences of minoritised learners in migration contexts.

Qualifications

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 

PhD in Second Language Education, University of Cambridge, 2023

MPhil Research in Second Language Education, University of Cambridge, 2018

BA in English, Nankai University, China

Biography

Yue Zhou joined the School of Education in 2025. She has a background in applied linguistics and languages education, and previously held teaching and research roles at the Universities of Nottingham, Sheffield, and Cambridge. 

Her research examines multilingualism as a social justice issue, with a particular focus on supporting identity development and well-being among racially and linguistically minoritised learners. She is interested in how learners make sense of growing up multilingual and how educational practices can better support their flourishing. 

Yue completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge as a Cambridge Trust Scholar. Her doctoral research bridged the fields of heritage language education and children’s well-being, introducing a new model for understanding multilingual children’s well-being and developing a validated measurement tool. Her current research builds on this foundation through two interrelated strands: heritage language education and learner well-being, and the intersections of multilingualism, identity, and social justice in education. Across these areas, she adopts participatory approaches, collaborating with multilingual children, families, complementary schools, and communities to co-produce knowledge and inform educational practices.

Teaching

Yue’s teaching is primarily on the MSc TESOL, where she contributes to both core and optional modules.

Postgraduate supervision

Yue is open to supervising PhD candidates in the following areas:

  • Multilingualism and identity
  • Heritage language education
  • Language learner well-being and learner psychology
  • Participatory and co-production research with learners, teachers, and communities

Publications