I am an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where I am also affiliated with the Population Studies Center, the  Center for East Asian Studies, and the Graduate School of Education. 

 My research focuses on education, child welfare and social inequality, particularly in China.  In China, I have studied gender, ethnic, and geographic disparities in education, changes in the impact of education on income and occupational attainment under market reforms, rural teachers and their links to student outcomes, and children’s and adolescents’ welfare under market reforms.  One major focus of mine is the Gansu Survey of Children and Families, a collaborative, longitudinal study of children in rural northwest China.  A recent product of the project is the book Education and Reform in China, co-edited with Albert Park.  Gansu Survey working papers can be found here.

I am also interested, more broadly, in educational expansion and educational inequality in comparative perspective. With Hyunjoon Park and Yuko Goto Butler, I have recently published volume 17 in Research in Sociology of Education, entitled Globalization, Changing Demographics, and Educational Challenges in East Asia. Downloadable papers and a cv available here.