Journal articles:

Tian, Xiaoli. 2025. “Through the Double Lens of the “Marginal Man” and Biography: Intellectual Diversity Among Chinese Students at Chicago.” American Sociologist. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-025-09660-8

Tian, Xiaoli and Sai Zhang. 2024. “Legitimacy and Professional Boundaries: An Institutional Analysis of Chinese Medicine in Mainland China and Hong Kong.” Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634593241303612

Liu, Dan and Xiaoli Tian. 2024. “Repairing with a Warm Heart: How Medical Practitioners Cultivate Affective Relationships with Clients.” Social Science & Medicine. Vol. 362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117449

Tian, Xiaoli and Qian Li. 2023. “Seeking Certainty in an Asymmetric Relationship: Livestream Shopping in China.” Qualitative Sociology. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-023-09549-3

Zhang, Long and Xiaoli Tian. 2024. “Defending the Hospital or Supporting the Complainant: Morality in Medical Disputes.” Chinese Sociological Review 56(1): 63–91.

Tian, Xiaoli, Dan Liu and Xiaoyan Han. 2023. “Living in the Shadow of Market Competition: Career Commitment and Orders of Worth of Social Workers in Shanghai”. American Journal of Cultural Sociology. Online first: https://rdcu.be/dnoyE

Miao, Weishan and Xiaoli Tian. 2022. Accepted and forthcoming. “Persona: How professional women in China negotiate gender performance online.” Social Media and Society.

Tian, Xiaoli and Sai Zhang. 2022. “Expert or experiential knowledge? How knowledge informs situated action in childcare practices.” Social Science & Medicine. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115195

Deng Yunxue and Xiaoli Tian. 2021. “Triadic Interaction and Collective Bargaining of Autoworkers in South China” Journal of Contemporary China. 31(135): 459-473.

Tian, Xiaoli and Yanan Guo. 2021. “An Online Acquaintance Community: The Emergence of Chinese Virtual Civility.” Symbolic Interaction. 44 (4): 771–797.
A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/2tG40y8J11E

Tian, Xiaoli. 2021. “An Interactional Space of Permanent Observability: WeChat and Reinforcing the Power Hierarchy in Chinese Workplaces.” Sociological Forum. 36 (1): 51-69.

Li, Xu-Hong, Tian-Ming Zhang, Yuen Yum Yau, Yi-Zhou Wang, Yin-Ling Irene Wong, Lawrence Yang, Xiao-li Tian Cecilia Lai-Wan Chan and Mao-Sheng Ran. 2020. “Peer-to-peer contact, social support and self-stigma among people with severe mental illness in Hong Kong”. International Journal of Social Psychiatry.

Cheris Shun-ching Chan, Paul Joosse, Sylvia J. Martin, and Xiaoli Tian. 2020. “Ethnography in Calamitous Times.” Special Issue on “Ethnography in the age of Covid-19”, Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa (Italian Journal of Ethnography and Qualitative Research). 2020(2): 175-184.

Tian, Xiaoli. 2019. “The Allure of Being Modern: Personal Quality as Status Symbol Among Migrant Families in Shanghai” Chinese Sociological Review. 51(3): 311-335.

Tian, Xiaoli. (2019) “Space and Personal Contacts: Cross-Group Interaction between Mainland and Local University Students in Hong Kong”. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships vol. 36(1) 63–82.

Lin, Tony Zhiyang and Xiaoli Tian. 2018. “Audience Design and Context Discrepancy: How Online Debates Lead to Opinion Polarization.” Symbolic Interaction. 42(1): 70-97. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/U5qdm6eiQ1M.

Tian, Xiaoli. 2018. “Escaping the interpersonal power game: Online shopping in China.” Qualitative Sociology. 41(4), 545-568.

Tian, Xiaoli. 2017. “Immediate Context, Life Experiences, and Perception: How Do Rural Migrants in Urban China Perceive an Unfair Policy?” Chinese Sociological Review. 49 (2): 138-161.

Tian, Xiaoli. 2017. “Embodied versus disembodied information: How online artifacts influence offline interpersonal interaction.” Symbolic Interaction. 40 (2): 190-211.

Tian, Xiaoli and Yunxue Deng. 2017. “Organizational Hierarchy, Deprived Masculinity, and Confrontational Practices: Men Doing Women’s Jobs in a Global Factory.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 46 (4): 464-489.

Tian, Xiaoli and Michael Adorjan. 2016. “Fandom and Coercive Empowerment: The commissioned production of Chinese online literature.” Media, Culture & Society. 38 (6): 881-900.

Tian, Xiaoli , Daniel A. Menchik. 2016. “On Violating One’s Own Privacy: N-adic Utterances and Inadvertent Disclosures in Online Venues.” Studies in Media and Communications, 11: pp. 3 – 30.

Tian, Xiaoli. 2016. “Network Domains in Social Networking Sites: Expectations, Meanings, and Social Capital”. Information, Communication & Society. 19 (2): 188-202.

Tian, Xiaoli. 2015. “Rumor and Secret Space: Organ-Snatching Tales and Medical Missions in Nineteenth-Century China.” Modern China. 41 (2): 197-236.

Menchik, Daniel and Xiaoli Tian. 2008. “Putting Social Context into Text: The Semiotics of Email Interaction.” American Journal of Sociology. 114: 332-70.

Tian, Xiaoli. 2016. “Parasocial interaction in the internet era: a sociological analysis of online literature in China.” Journal of Tsinghua University (Philosophy and Social Sciences). 31 (1): 173-181.

Tian, Xiaoli (with Han Xiaoyan). 2015. “(Immediate Context, Culture, and Selective Attention: The Perceptions of Long-term Petitioners).” Journal of Tsinghua University (Philosophy and Social Sciences). 30 (1): 59-67.

Tian, Xiaoli (with Han Xiaoyan) 2016. “制度、文化、与日常确证——外来移民及其子女的情景性身份认同Institution, Culture, and Corroboration of Everyday Life – Situational Identification of Migrants and their Children in Urban China.” 清华大学学报（哲学社会科学）Journal of Tsinghua University (Philosophy and Social Sciences). 31(6): 175-182.

Book chapter:

Li, Qian and Xiaoli Tian. 2022. “The Presence, Performance, and Publics of Online Interactions.” Oxford Handbook of Symbolic Interaction, edited by Wayne Brekhus, Thomas DeGloma and William Force. Oxford University Press.

Tian, Xiaoli and Yui Fung Yip. 2021. “Physical Co-presence and Distinctive Features of Online Interactions.” in The Routledge International Handbook of Interactionism, edited by Dirk vom Lehn, Natalia Ruiz-Junco, and Will Gibson. London, Routledge.

Tian, Xiaoli and Qian Li. 2021. “Facework on Chinese Social Media.” In The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Digital Media. Edited by Sarah Sobieraj and Deana Rohlinger. Oxford University Press.

Tian, Xiaoli. 2019. “Fantasy is More Believable: The Shadow Civil Sphere in Chinese Online Fiction.” Pp. 167-187 in The Civil Sphere in East Asia. Edited by Jeffrey Alexander, David Palmer, Sunwoong Park and Agnes Shuk-mei Ku. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tian, Xiaoli. 2017. “Face-work on Social Media: The Presentation of Self on Renren and Facebook.” Chinese Social Media Today: Social, Cultural, and Political Implications. Edited by Mike Kent, Katie Ellis and Jian Xu. London: Routledge.

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