Research

Dissertation: Gender Ambiguity of Chinese Names in the United States

My dissertation investigates the persistence of the gender frame in an uncertain context. Using Chinese names written in English letters as a gender-ambiguous cue, I offer an innovative case to probe group stereotypes at the intersection of gender and race. This dissertation employs a multi-method approach to reveal the perceptions of the dominant group toward gender-ambiguous Chinese names (Study 1 & 2) and the lived experiences of Chinese individuals carrying these names (Study 3).

  • Study 1: Conducting an online survey experiment to examine how U.S. individuals classify the gender of Chinese names, and how pre-existing cultural beliefs about gender and race are associated with the classification outcome.

  • Study 2: Conducting computational text analysis on a representative online corpus to examine gender categories and attributes of Chinese names in the broad cultural environment.

  • Study 3: Conducting in-depth interviews with Chinese international students about their experiencces related to gender-ambiguity of their names in daily life, and how these experiences shape their racial identities and sense of belonging.

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles