Faculty and Staff Profiles

I have taught child development and human development courses since 1996. As a developmental researcher, I studied comparative early childhood education, professional development of preschool teachers, and the learning and development of young children. All these studies shared a key underlying question of how the research participants' development, socialization, acculturation responde to the changing society. This question was inspired by an earlier examination of how Jean Piaget's work was introduced into psychology, education and other intellectual areas in the United States. For some time, I worked as a senior consultant for Sesame Workshop, the producer of Sesame Street, in education content, research and outreach activities in China. This international engagement with media and communications offered me various opportunities to research on children and media, cultural processes, and cross-cultural understandings in the age of globalization and cultural divergence. My current research is to learn how Chinese rural preschool stakeholders experience the dramatic change of being uplifted from poverty in various complex societal changes.

For information on Preschool in Three Cultures, visit my colleague's website: http://joetobin.net/

• Ed.D. Learning and Teaching - Harvard University - 1997
• Ed.M. Human Development - Harvard University - 1989
• B.A English and Literature - Beijing Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics - 1982

• Assistant Professor--Professor, Counseling, Educational Psychology & Research - University of Memphis - 2000-now
• Senior Consultant, Global Education/China - Sesame Workshop - 1998-2020
• Research Associate, Teacher Education Program - Harvard University - 1999-2000
• Resident Researcher, Archives Jean Piaget - University of Geneva - 1998

• "Excellent Paper in Empirical Education Research," - National Center for Empirical Education Research Awards, Shanghai, China - 2023

• Life-span Human Development (M50, M51) - University of Memphis
• Early Childhood Development (G) - University of Memphis
• Social Development of Children (G) - University of Memphis
• Introduction to Jean Piaget (G) - University of Memphis
• Interviewing Children for Research Purposes (G) - University of Memphis
• Understanding Research on Respect: An interdisciplinary approach (G) - University of Memphis
• Childhood development in the digital age (G) - University of Memphis

• Video: Little Sar Preschool - 2000 - Beijing/Cambridge - None
• Award ceremony - Summer 2025 - Belgrade/Memphis - Jean Piaget Society
• Video: Sunrise Preschool - 2001 - Memphis - University of Memphis
• Video: Preschool in 3 Cultures Revisited - 2009 - Memphis/Tempe - Spencer/ASU
• Video: PS3CR (Chinese) - 2012 - Memphis/Athen - Spencer
• Video: JPS 50th Anniversary - March-May 2021 - Memphis/Philadelphia/New York - Jean Piaget Society

• Jean Piaget Society - Board of Directors - 2025-2029
• Association for Constructivist Teaching - Board of Directors - 2024-2027
• Jean Piaget Society - Board of Directors - 2020-2023
• Jean Piaget Society - Dissertation Prize Committee - 2013-2017

• Sesame Workshop - 1998-2020
• Blue Butterfly Collaborative - 2018
• Shanghai Institute of Preschool Education Research - 2018-2019

• Hsueh, Y. (2025). Retrofitting Justification and Progressive Outlook: Commentary on David Elkind (2025). Human Development, 69(4), 201-205.

• Hao, J., Hsueh, Y., Kitzmann, K., Yuan, H., & Yue, Y. (2024). Early childhood risk-taking behaviors in Chinese parenting environment: The mediating role of parental supervision. Early Education & Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2024.2389363

• Hao, J., Hsueh, Y. & Kitzmann, K. (2023). An Exploratory Study of Salient Family Risk Factors in Relation to Preschoolers’ Unintentional Injury in Northwest China. Children and Youth Services Review, 147, 106854. ?
• Zhang, J., Clark, M. R., & Hsueh, Y. (2022). Free play and “loving care’: A qualitative inquiry of Chinese kindergarten teachers’ professional ethics. ECNU Review of Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/20965311221121677
• Hsueh, Y., Liu, T., & Mule', T. (2021). Relocating the frame of reference for studying play: Reflections from fieldwork in Chinese rural preschools.  Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 22 (4). 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1177/14639491211058763
• Li, H., Hsueh, Y., & Yu H., Kitzmann, K. M. (2020). Viewing fantastical events in animated television shows: Immediate effects of television fantastical events on Chinese preschoolers’ executive function. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.583174
• Audley, S., Hsueh, Y., & Zhang, H. (2019). I’m respectful. Why don’t they like me? Self and peer evaluation of respect and children’s social competence. Social Development, 29(1), 249-272. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12389
• Hsueh, Y., Hao, J., & Yue, Y. (2018). Learning from US experience and social policy to improve Chinese 0-3 early education: An anthropological perspective. Early Childhood Education (Educational Sciences (Chinese), 6, 8-12.
• Hsueh, Y., Zhou, Z., Su, G., Lee, J., & Kitzmann, K. (2017). Early science learning: Effects of ”Big Bird Looks at the World.” Global Media & China, 2(2), 183-196. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/2059436417717072
• Hsueh, Y., Hao, J., & Zhang, H. (2016). The needs and difficulties in socializing the young in contemporary China: Early childhood education experts’ perspectives. The Global Teacher and Researcher: Policy, Theory and Practice, a special issue in Policy Futures in Education, 14(1), 123-138. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210315612655

• Hsueh, Y. (2025, Jun). Helping graduate students develop their understandings of Piaget in a human development course. Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society. Belgrade, Serbia.
• Hsueh, Y. & Clark, M. (2023, June). Progress in developing developmental science. Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society. Madrid, Spain.
• Hsueh, Y. (2021, June). The idea of creating the Jean Piaget Society in 1969. Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society. Virtual Conference.
• Hsueh, Y., & Hao, J. (2019, April). The rise of Chinese rural preschools: A visual ethnographic study. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Baltimore, MD.
• Hsueh, Y. (2017, June). Constructivist education revisited. Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society. San Francisco, CA.
• Hsueh, Y. (2015, November). “Preschool in Three Cultures” and preschool teachers’ professional development. Annual conference of the China National Society of Early Childhood Education. Fuzhou, China.
• Hsueh, Y., Hao, J., & Cheng, M. (2015, June). Chinese preschoolers’ preferences for the images of Sesame Street’s Muppets. Presented at the symposium on “Education media from young children's perspectives.” Jean Piaget Society annual conference, Toronto, Canada.
• Hsueh, Y. (2013, Feburary). The urgent needs of Chinese preschool-aged children: Early childhood education experts’ perspectives. Seminar on International Research in Early Childhood. Bergen University College, Bergen, Norway. http://www.hib.no/aktuelt/konferanse/2013/international_research_in_early_childhood.asp
• Hsueh, Y. (2011, June). Reconsidering Piaget's pedagogical ideas in light of the Preschool in Three Cultures studies. Paper presented at the annual meeting of Jean Piaget Society. Berkeley, CA.