Roseann Liu, assistant professor at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, has recently received two national awards for her recent book, Designed to Fail: Why Racial Equity in School Funding Is So Hard to Achieve (University of Chicago Press, 2024). She was honored with the 2024 Critic’s Choice Book Award from the American Education Studies Association and the Outstanding Book Award from the Council of Anthropology and Education.
With a focus on Philadelphia-area school districts, Designed to Fail examines funding disparities between predominately White and non-White schools by discussing how local lawmakers’ policy decisions perpetuate racial inequities.
At Swarthmore College, Dr. Liu holds appointments with the department of educational studies and the Asian American studies program. As a scholar of race, education inequality, and social justice, she studies multiracial solidarity, structural racism in school funding, and engaged methodologies. Her career began as a teacher in New York City public schools, which sparked her interest in education policy and evaluation research.
Dr. Liu is a graduate of New York University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in early childhood and elementary education. She holds a master’s degree in educational leadership from Teachers College at Columbia University and a joint Ph.D. in anthropology and education from the University of Pennsylvania.