Founded in 1954, SHNU was then named Shanghai Teachers Training College. In 1956 it was expanded into two colleges, Shanghai No. 1 Teachers College and Shanghai No. 2 Teachers College. Two years later, the two colleges were combined to form Shanghai Teachers College. In 1981, SHNU became the first batch of Chinese universities approved to confer master's degrees, and in 1986, SHNU won the qualifications to admit doctor's degree candidates.
From 1972 to 1978, it was known as Shanghai Normal University after combining 4 other universities. In 1978, it was restored to Shanghai Teachers College and was renamed as Shanghai Teachers University in 1984. It combined with Shanghai Teachers College of Technology in October 1994 to form a new Shanghai Teachers University, whose official English name was changed to Shanghai Normal University (SHNU) in May 2003. From September 1997 to August 2003, the university took in successively the following units as its subordinates: Shanghai Teacher Training College, Department of Human Sanitation and Health of Huangling Teacher School, Shanghai Xingzhi Art School, and Shanghai Tourism Institute. Also located in SHNU are, among others, Shanghai Teachers Training Center, Shanghai College Teachers Training Center, and the Editorial Department of Academic Abstracts of Liberal Arts of College Journals.
SHNU was ranked No. 84 on 2019 U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities (Mainland China) and No. 50 on QS World University Rankings: Asia 2019 (Mainland China). SHNU was ranked No. 98 on 2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) Best Chinese Universities Ranking.
SHNU has two main campuses, Xuhui Campus and Fengxian Campus, covering an area of over 1.53 million square meters. The floor area of the school occupies 650,000 square meters: the classroom area is 67,000 square meters, students’ dorm area 239,000 square meters, and indoor school labs and fieldwork space 60,000 square meters.
Two central libraries house 3.25 million books, 21 pieces of databank of electronic books, and four stores of rare or important reference materials. The fixed assets of the whole university are as high as 1.27 billion yuan, among which teaching facilities and research equipment are valued as 315 million yuan.
