Minority Education in China PDF

Minority Education in China
Balancing Unity and Diversity in an Era of Critical Pluralism
Edited by
James Leibold and Chen Yangbin
This series explores the dramatic changes in China’s education system. By using
fresh perspectives and innovative methods, each volume delves into the issues
and debates that continue to challenge education in China, including cultural
and linguistic diversity, regional disparity, ethnic minority education, financial
decentralization, technological change, university autonomy, and increased
internationalization.
Series editors: Gerard A. Postiglione and Wing-wah Law

Series advisor: Kai-ming Cheng
Other titles in the series:

Toward Critical Patriotism: Student Resistance to Political Education in Hong Kong
and China
Gregory P. Fairbrother
Language Education in China: Policy and Experience from 1949
Agnes S. L. Lam
e-Learning Initiatives in China: Pedagogy, Policy and Culture
Edited by Helen Spencer-Oatey
University Autonomy, the State and Social Change in China
Su-Yan Pan
Balancing Unity and Diversity in an Era of Critical

Pluralism
Edited by James Leibold and Chen Yangbin

Hong Kong University Press
The University of Hong Kong
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Hong Kong
www.hkupress.org
© Hong Kong University Press 2014
ISBN 978-988-8208-13-5
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound by Cheer Shine Enterprise Co., Ltd. in Hong Kong, China
Contents
List of Contributors vii

List of Figures and Tables xi
Foreword xiii
James A. Banks
Acknowledgements xix
Introduction: Minority Education in China: Balancing Unity and 1

Diversity in an Era of Critical Pluralism
Part I Diversity in Unity or Unity in Diversity

1. Education and Cultural Diversity in Multiethnic China 27
Gerard Postiglione
2. The Power of Chinese Linguistic Imperialism and Its Challenge to 45
Multicultural Education
He Baogang
3. How Do You Say “China” in Mongolian? Toward a Deeper 65
Understanding of Multicultural Education in China
Naran Bilik
Part II Minority Education on the Frontier: Language and Identity

4. Bilingual Education and Language Policy in Tibet 83
Ma Rong
5. Popularizing Basic Education in Tibet’s Nomadic Regions 107
Gerard Postiglione, Ben Jiao, Li Xiaoliang, and Tsamla
vi Contents
6. The Practice of Ethnic Policy in Education: Xinjiang’s Bilingual 131

Education System
Zuliyati Simayi
7. Trilingual Education and School Practice in Xinjiang 161
Linda Tsung
8. Multicultural Education and Ethnic Integration: A Case Study of 187
Girls’ Education in the Lahu Area
Teng Xing, Yang Hong, and Yang Qixue
Part III Educational Integration in China Proper: Pathways and Barriers

9. Towards Another Minority Educational Elite Group in Xinjiang? 201
Chen Yangbin
10. Uyghur University Students and Ramadan: Challenging the 221
Minkaomin/Minkaohan Labels
Timothy Grose
11. The Trilingual Trap: “Imagined” Empowerment among Ethnic 239
Mongols in China
Zhao Zhenzhou
12. Identity and Multilingualism: Negotiating Multiculturalism among 259
Ethnic Korean Teachers in China
Gao Fang
Part IV Styles, Stereotypes, and Preferences: Hurdles for Minority

Education
13. Intellectual Styles and Their Implications for Multicultural 279
Education in China
Li-fang Zhang
14. Han Chinese Reactions to Preferential Minority Education in 299
the PRC
James Leibold
15. How University Administrators View Ethnic Minority Students 321
Yu Haibo
Notes 341
Bibliography 353
Index 395
List of Contributors
James A. Banks holds the Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair in Diversity
Studies and is Founding Director of the Center for Multicultural Education at
the University of Washington, Seattle. He is a member of the National Academy
of Education and is a past President of the American Educational Research
Association (AERA) and of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).
He is editor of The Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education
and the Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education published by Sage. His volumi-
nous writing on multicultural education is known and influential throughout the
world, and his books have been translated into Greek, Japanese, Chinese, and
Korean.
Ben Jiao is Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Ethnology at the
Tibet Academy of Social Sciences. He is an expert on Tibetan family structure
and educational developments in rural and nomadic areas. He is also a consult-
ant to many aid agencies and NGOs on economic and social development.
Chen Yangbin is Lecturer in the School of Humanities at La Trobe University

and the author of Muslim Uyghur Students in a Chinese Boarding School: Social
Recapitalization as a Response to Ethnic Integration (2008). His current research
includes a longitudinal study of graduates of the “Xinjiang Class” boarding
schools at universities and workplaces in Xinjiang and eastern China, and a soci-
ological exploration of ethnic perceptions between Han and minority communi-
ties in China.
Gao Fang is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Education

Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, and the author of Being a Model Minority:
Schooling Experiences of Ethnic Koreans in China (2010), and numerous other
viii List of Contributors
works. She specializes in sociology of education as well as Chinese as a second

language. Her teaching and research interests include ethnicity and educational
achievement, identity in relation to bilingual education and second language
learning and use, teacher identity and pedagogy, minority students’ access to
higher education, educational policy, and discourse analysis.
Timothy Grose is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Central Eurasian

Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, where his PhD thesis explores the
tendency among Uyghur graduates of the “Xinjiang Class” boarding school
program to construct a nativist vision of Uyghur identity while rejecting the idea
that they belong to the “Chinese Nation.” His research has appeared in Asian
Studies Review, The Journal of Muslim Minorities Affairs, and Chinese Education
and Society.
He Baogang is Professor and Chair in International Studies at Deakin University

in Australia. He is the author of seven books and over one hundred journal
articles and book chapters in English, including the trailblazing 2005 volume
Multiculturalism in Asia which he co-edited with Will Kymlicka. He currently
holds numerous adjunct professorships at leading universities in China, UK, and
US.
James Leibold is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Asian Studies at La Trobe

University in Australia. He is the author of Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism
(2007), Ethnic Policy in China (2013), and co-editor of Critical Han Studies
(2012), and his research on ethnicity and nationalism in modern China has
appeared in The Journal of Asian Studies, The China Quarterly, The China Journal,
Modern China and other publications.
Li Xiaoliang is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Education at the University

of Hong Kong. His PhD research explores the role of cultural capital in regional
and social disparities in college access during the “massification” of higher educa-
tion in central China. He has also done research on educational developments
in Tibet.
Ma Rong is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Institute of Sociology

and Anthropology at Peking University. His research explores the social devel-
opment of rural China and ethnic minority regions, and he has conducted field
research in Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, and many other parts of China.
List of Contributors ix
His major publications include two books in English: Ethnic Relations in China
(2008) and Population and Society in Contemporary Tibet (2011), and eight
books in Chinese, as well as hundreds of articles in English and Chinese.
Naran Bilik is Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean at the Fudan

Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, and
also holds the Ministry of Education Changjiang Scholar Chair Professorship at
Guizhou University. His research focuses are linguistic anthropology, ethnicity
and race, culture change, and minority education in China, and he has conducted
field research in Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Jiangsu. His major pub-
lications include China’s Minorities on the Move (2003), Linguistic Anthropology
(2010), and numerous journal articles and book chapters in English and Chinese.
Gerard Postiglione is Professor and Head of the Division of Policy,

Administration and Social Sciences, and Director of the Wah Ching Centre of
Research on Education in China in the Faculty of Education at the University
of Hong Kong. His scholarship focuses on reform and development in China
and East Asia, especially in education and society. He is the author of ten books
and over one hundred journal articles and book chapters, and has done research
for the Asian Development Bank, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching, United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank. As a
senior consultant to the Ford Foundation, he established their grants framework
for education reform in China.
Teng Xing is Professor of Educational Anthropology at Minzu University of

China in Beijing. He is the author of numerous publications in Chinese and
English and one of the founders of the Journal of Research on Education for
Ethnic Minorities. He has served as an advisor for UNESCO, World Bank, Asian
Development Bank, the Ford Foundation, and other international development
agencies.
Tsamla is Research Fellow in the Institute of Contemporary Tibetan Studies

at the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences. Her research focuses on educational
development and gender issues in rural and nomadic Tibet.
Linda Tsung is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Chinese

Studies at the University of Sydney and Vice President of the International
Association of Bilingual Studies. She is an expert on Chinese language education,
x List of Contributors
multilingualism, and multicultural education in Australia and China, teaching

Chinese as a second/additional language and educational outcomes, especially
as they affect students from minority backgrounds in China, and has authored
numerous publications on these topics.
Yang Hong is Associate Research Fellow at the China National Institute for
Educational Research and completed a doctoral degree in educational anthro-
pology from Minzu University of China in 2009.
Yang Qixue is a graduate student at Minzu University of China and is currently

majoring in ethnic minority education.
Yu Haibo is Associate Research Fellow at the National Academy of Education

Administration in Beijing. Her research interests are ethnic education and edu-
cational administration in China, and she is the author of Identity and Schooling
among the Naxi: Becoming Chinese with Naxi Identity (2009).
Li-fang Zhang is Professor of Psychology and Education in the Faculty of

Education at the University of Hong Kong, where she served as Associate Dean
(Research Higher Degrees) from 2007 to 2010. She is the author of over one
hundred peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and books, including the award-
winning book The Nature of Intellectual Styles (2006) and the recently-published
book The Malleability of Intellectual Styles (2013). Her main areas of research
include intellectual styles, creativity, giftedness, personality, student develop-
ment in higher education, and the academic profession.
Zhao Zhenzhou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at

the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Her research interests include sociology
of education and citizenship education, and she is the author of China’s Mongols
at University: Contesting Cultural Recognition (2010).
Zuliyati Simayi is Associate Professor in the School of Political and Public

Management at Xinjiang University in Ürümqi. She is the recipient of several
major awards for her sociological research on educational policies and pedagogy
for minority education in China, and the author of numerous publications in
Chinese and English, including the Chinese translation of Martin Marger’s Race
and Ethnic Relations.
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
4.1 Language teaching systems in the TAR (1988) 90
5.1 Location of the TAR in China 110
5.2 Location of Nakchu Prefecture in the TAR 111
5.3 Location of Ngari Prefecture in the TAR 111
7.1 Uyghur, Han, and Qazaq (Kazakh) population density at the 168
prefecture level in the XUAR
7.2 Location of Aksu Prefecture in the XUAR 171
8.1 Location of Lancang Lahu Autonomous County in Yunnan Province 188
8.2 The structural-functional ecology of Lahu mountainous schooling 194
8.3 Schema of multicultural integration education 196
12.1 Location of Fushun Prefecture in Liaoning Province 265
Tables
4.1 Language course arrangement in primary, middle, and high schools 91
in the TAR during the late 1980s
4.2 Language of instruction in schools in the TAR (1991) 93
4.3 Teacher distribution in junior middle schools and high schools 95
in the TAR (1988 and 2005)
4.4 School enrollment rates for school-age children and graduation rates 96
in the TAR (%)
4.5 Student distribution in schools in the TAR (2005–2006 academic 98
year)
4.6 Language teaching models in schools in the TAR 100
5.1 Average enrollment rate (%) of TAR prefectures (2000) 113
xii List of Figures and Tables
5.2 Number of counties by prefecture that popularized six-year 114

compulsory education (6YCE) and nine-year compulsory
education (9YCE) by 2000 and 2005
6.1 Population distribution (%) of XUAR by prefecture/city and their 133
ethnic structure (2007)
6.2 Student enrollment at middle and primary schools in the XUAR 136
by teaching languages (%), 2009
6.3 Number and type of schools in the XUAR at different levels, 2009 140
6.4 Student performance on the high school entrance exam, Ürümqi 146
(2003–2005)
6.5 Policy-awarded points for minority students in the XUAR 151
6.6 Required scores for admission to college/university in the XUAR, 153
1977–2009
10.1 Uyghur students who observed the Ramadan fast 230
10.2 Uyghur students who did not observe the Ramadan fast 231
10.3 Average meal times during Ramadan 232
13.1 Intellectual styles 282
15.1 List of interviewees’ institutions 325
Foreword
James A. Banks
Migration within and across nation-states is a worldwide phenomenon. The

movement of peoples across national boundaries is as old as the nation-state
itself. However, never before in the history of the world has the movement of
diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious groups within and across
nations been as numerous and rapid or raised such complex and difficult ques-
tions about the rights of immigrant and ethnic groups and the extent to which
the state should provide them recognition and equal educational opportunities.
In 1990, 120 million people were living outside their nation of birth or citizen-
ship. This number grew to 160 million in 2000, and to 214 million in 2010, which
was 3.1 percent of the world’s total population of seven billion (United Nations
Population Division 2011). China is now experiencing massive waves of internal
migration from rural to urban areas and has one of the world’s largest internal
migrations, which consisted of 236 million people in 2013. Rural inhabitants
are settling in large waves in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and
Shenzhen (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2013).
Many worldwide trends and developments are challenging the notion of edu-
cating students to become effective citizens in one community, ethnic autono-
mous region, linguistic area, or nation. These trends include the ways in which
people are moving across regions within nations as well as across nations. The
rights of movement permitted by the European Union and the rights codified in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have also stimulated the movement
of ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups within and across nations.
The Black civil rights movement that occurred in the United States in the
1960s and 1970s echoed throughout the world and stimulated marginalized
xiv Foreword
ethnic, racial, linguistic, and religious groups to organize and push for increased
rights within their societies and nations, including the right to have cultural rec-
ognition in their nations as well as equal educational opportunities. Groups such
as the Aborigines in Australia, Jamaicans in England, and First Nations peoples
in Canada were encouraged by the Black civil rights movement in the United
States to demand cultural recognition and social equality, including equal access
to education.
China has been ethnically, linguistically, and religiously diverse throughout
its history. Although the Han Chinese make up about 92 percent of the national
population, China has fifty-five officially designated ethnic minority groups
(Postiglione 2009b). After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) in 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC) developed an official
state policy which proclaims that ethnic groups have the right to be educated in
their native languages, permits the recognition of ethnic and community cultures
in state schools, and makes special provisions for ethnic groups to attain educa-
tional equality (Wan 2004). Although minority cultures and languages can be
recognized in state schools, the central government “emphasize[s] national unity
and identification with the socialist system” (Wan 2004: 360–61).
This book vividly reveals the ways in which “the citizenship education
dilemma” (Banks 2004b)—the discrepancy between the ideals within a nation
and the actual practices in classrooms and schools—exists in China as it does
in other nations throughout the world, such as Australia (Inglis 2009), Canada
( Joshee 2009), the United States (Nieto 2009), and the United Kingdom
(Tomlinson 2009). The chapters in this book graphically illuminate the ways
in which state policy and rhetoric about recognition and educational equality
for ethnic groups are contradicted and frequently violated by teachers and other
educational practitioners in China. He Baogang’s discussion of “linguistic impe-
rialism” in Chapter 2 is a compelling example of the gap between national ideals
and practices. An enormous challenge for educators and scholars in China—like
those in other nations—is to conceptualize and implement effective ways to
close the wide gap between national ideals and classroom practices.
There is a delicate balance between practices and policies that reify ethnic
identities and boundaries and those that guarantee the rights of ethnic minor-
ity groups. The ethnic identities and characteristics of minzu [ethnic] groups
Foreword xv
in China are complex, contextual, dynamic, and fluid. Because ethnic identity
and characteristics are fluid and intricate, policies and practices that reify and
essentialize ethnic groups—such as ethnic festivals, customs, and the policy
that requires the inclusion of ethnic status on national ID cards—can reinforce
ethnic boundaries, separatism, and facilitate the development of stereotypes.
However, as scholars such as Will Kymlicka (1995) and Iris M. Young (2000)
have pointed out, ethnic recognitions and policies are often needed because they
enable minority group members to attain “group-differentiated rights” which are
required for them to attain structural inclusion and social-class mobility.
Issues related to the acquisition of Putonghua and the retention of home,
community, and ethnic languages is a significant theme in the chapters that con-
stitute this book. National policy in China states that students should be able
to maintain their ethnic and community languages while learning Putonghua.
The authors describe how this ideal is rarely implemented in practice and that
students from ethnic groups and rural regions of China who speak languages
viewed as “backward” by teachers and administrators often experience self-
alienation in schools or what Joel Spring (2010) calls “deculturation” and what
Angela Valenzuela (1999) describes as “substractive schooling.” The experiences
of Chinese students who speak what educators consider “backward languages”
are similar to the experiences of students who speak home languages that have
a low status in US schools, such as the versions of Spanish spoken by Mexican
American and Puerto Rican American students.
In the introduction Leibold and Chen describe the complex and ambivalent
relationship that Chinese scholars, researchers, and educators have with Western
democratic ideals and Western research and scholarship related to diversity and
education. Chinese scholars and educators are legitimately searching for ways to
indigenize Western ideas related to diversity and multicultural education and to
interpret and implement them in the context of Confucianism within a Marxist
political and economic context. One of the significant differences, for example,
between China and immigrant nations such as Australia, Canada, and the United
States is that the fifty-five ethnic minority groups in China are original inhabit-
ants of the nation and are not immigrants.
Chinese researchers and educators, however, confront a dilemma because
Marxism itself was imported from the West to China and a major goal of state
xvi Foreword
schools is to teach students English as well as computer knowledge and skills that
originated in the West. The chapters in this book suggest that Chinese educators,
scholars, and researchers must tread a delicate and slippery line between imple-
menting an indigenized version of diversity and multicultural education and
educating Chinese students in ways that will enable them to attain the knowl-
edge, skills, and languages needed to become effective citizens both in China and
in the globalized world of the twenty-first century. Worldwide globalization as
manifested in social media such as Facebook and Twitter [Weibo] are powerful
factors which complicate the indigenization of diversity within the social, politi-
cal, and cultural context of China. The Internet and social media create global
communities among youth that are transnational and that defy national borders,
as Appadurai (1998) has perceptively described.
This book reveals that multicultural education in China has been conceptual-
ized primarily as a compensatory endeavor that is designed to benefit marginal-
ized ethnic minority groups. It is rarely viewed as an intervention strategy for the
Han majority. A comprehensive multicultural education must have, as one of its
major goals, the transformation of mainstream groups within a nation because
they are the most powerful groups in society both presently and in the future.
Consequently, an essential future agenda for the implementation of policy and
practices related to diversity and multicultural education in China is to concep-
tualize and implement educational interventions that target mainstream domi-
nant groups. Diversity initiatives in China, as in other nations, will not succeed
without the inclusion and support of mainstream powerful groups and without
them viewing diversity initiatives as serving both their interests and those of
marginalized ethnic groups.
Derrick Bell’s (1980) interest-convergence theory indicates that dominant
and mainstream groups will support reforms that benefit marginalized groups
only if those reforms converge with their own interests and benefit them.
Consequently, it is essential that multicultural and diversity initiatives in China
incorporate the interests of marginalized as well as mainstream and dominant
groups. Leibold’s description in Chapter 14 of the Han community’s resentment
of preferential policy in university admission for ethnic minorities is an example
of a policy that the Han community does not view as consistent with its interests.
Foreword xvii
This informative, timely, and copiously researched book is an important con-

tribution to research, policy, and practice in China as well as a significant con-
tribution to theory construction in comparative multicultural education (Banks
2012; Joshee 2012). The case studies, concepts, and principles described in this
book will enable researchers to compare the education of ethnic minority groups
in China with the education of marginalized ethnic groups in other nations.
These comparisons will facilitate the construction of powerful generalizations,
principles, and theories that will have applicability across nations.
Acknowledgements
This volume, like most edited volumes, was several years in the making and
would not have been published without the generous support and forbearance
of numerous individuals and organizations.
The project had its origins in early 2010 with the idea of gathering several of
Professor Gerard Postiglione’s former PhD students and colleagues together to
review the state of ethnic minority education in the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) since the 1999 publication of his landmark edited volume China’s National
Minority Education: Culture, Schooling and Development. In December 2010, over
two-dozen experts from mainland China, Hong Kong, Australia, and the United
States gathered at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, to present their
initial papers and discuss some of the crucial issues confronting minority edu-
cation in China’s new millennium. In September 2011, a follow-up workshop
was held at the University of Hong Kong, which allowed individual authors to
further refine their contributions while continuing our discussions with a special
emphasis on practical policy suggestions and outcomes. The editors would like
to thank our contributors for their valuable contributions, ungrudging patience,
and professional assistance in meeting numerous deadlines associated with this
project. Together the twenty-one contributors to this volume bring a range of
diverse and critical perspectives to the challenges associated with balancing
unity and diversity in minority education in China while improving pedagogic
outcomes.
Several organizations provided necessary funding support for the two work-
shops and subsequent work on the manuscript. They include: the Australian
Academy of Humanities (through its International Science Linkages—
xx Acknowledgements
Humanities and Creative Arts Programme funding scheme); the Faculty of

Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University; the Ford Foundation; the
Wah Ching Centre of Research on Education in China at the University of Hong
Kong; the Centre for Chinese Studies and the China Small Grants Scheme, La
Trobe University. At various stages throughout the project, the following individ-
uals also provided generous assistance or advice: Qin Can, Colin Mackerras, He
Jin, Pei Likun, Jean Zhang, Julian Zhang, Tim Brown, Judith Brett, Marilyn Lake,
Kaori Okano, Amanda Dunn, Chanel Zhang, Karen Chiu, and Hong Yanbi. The
editors would like to thank Hong Kong University Press and its super-efficient
and friendly staff for their assistance with the peer-review and production pro-
cesses, especially Michael Duckworth, Clara Ho, Maria Yim, Christy Leung, and
Jessica Wang, and we are also grateful to the press’ anonymous reviewers for their
valuable comments and suggestions, which have helped to greatly strengthen
this volume. We are also deeply appreciative to Professor James A. Banks, a pio-
neering light and now leading expert in the field of multicultural education in the
United States and other Western countries, for agreeing to write the foreword for
this volume.
Finally, we would like to thank Gerard Postiglione for his unyielding support
of, assistance with, and inspiration for this project; without his enthusiastic
commitment over the last three years, this volume would have remained a mere
thought.
James Leibold, Beijing

Chen Yangbin, Melbourne
September 2013
Introduction
Balancing Unity and Diversity in an Era of Critical Pluralism
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) promotes itself as a harmonious, stable

multicultural mosaic, with fifty-six distinct ethnic groups, or minzu (民族)
as they are termed in China, striving for common prosperity. It’s an image we
remember well from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But beneath the rhetoric and
the carefully orchestrated displays of harmony, interethnic discord and hostil-
ity continues to flare cyclically, with Lhasa (2008), Ürümqi (2009), Shaoguan
(2009), and other cities witnessing the latest episodes of conflict, violence, and
unrest. Like other culturally diverse countries across the globe, the Chinese
Party-state must balance the political and economic imperatives of national inte-
gration with the pluralistic realities of its diverse ethnocultural communities.
This high-wire act is never easy.
The state education system is a key battleground in the Chinese Party-state’s
efforts to contain this simmering tension, while it seeks to transform its goal of
ethnic harmony into reality. Education curricula and policy initiatives look to
cultivate a sense of shared national belonging through specially designed pro-
grams targeted (often separately) at ethnic minority and Han majority citizens.
These include history and geography courses emphasizing the natural, long-term
fusion of the Chinese geo-body and its people; civics lessons outlining the state’s
ethnic policies and system of regional autonomy for ethnic minorities; specially
designed classes, schools and universities for minority training; and a series of
preferential treatment policies aimed at promoting equal educational oppor-
tunities for minority students (Postiglione 1999a; Information Office 2009).
According to Gerard Postiglione (this volume), China has entered an era of “crit-
ical pluralism,” an uneasy pivot between interethnic conflict and harmony, where
2 James Leibold and Chen Yangbin
the state schooling system is now the frontline in the battle to push Chinese
society towards a “harmonious multiculturalism.”
This edited volume brings together twenty-one experts to explore a range of
crucial issues confronting minority education in China’s new millennium: the
challenges associated with bilingual and trilingual education on the frontier; Han
Chinese attitudes toward minority students and their education; the hegemonic
role of the Chinese written and spoken language; dislocated inland boarding
schools for minority students; the mediation of religion, language, and culture
in minority schools; among other topics. It covers these themes from a range of
diverse ethnic perspectives—Korean, Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Han—
with the authors themselves representing a range of different national, ethnic,
and educational backgrounds. The volume combines empirically grounded field
studies with more theoretically informed chapters.
Taken together, the chapters in this book probe the specific policies and the
cultural/political setting of minority education in the PRC, casting a critical gaze
over current approaches in order to identify areas of success and nagging prob-
lems of design and implementation. An important starting point for these chap-
ters is the complex intellectual and policy debates surrounding the value, nature,
and specific import of cultural pluralism in Chinese and Western educational set-
tings. By way of introduction, we begin by sketching out the parameters of this
cross-cultural dialogue, exploring the relationship between the liberal tradition
of “multicultural education” in the West and the unique form of pluralism that
underpins what we term “multi-minzu education” in the PRC, before outlining
some of the hurdles associated with promoting genuine ethnic and cultural plu-
ralism in China.
Multicultural Education: Western Origins, Global Implications?
Despite some recent interest among Chinese scholars, multicultural education

(as a normative and policy framework) is alien to the Chinese tradition. The
term and the set of values associated with it arose alongside the Civil Rights
and “ethnic revitalization” movements in North America during the 1960s and
1970s. According to James A. Banks, educators were responding to parallel pro-
cesses of decolonization and the increased global flows of peoples and goods, and
Introduction: Minority Education in China 3
sought to address the following problems: 1) the perceived gap between social
inequalities and democratic ideals; 2) an identity and community void left by the
rapid rush towards modernity; and 3) global movements for ethnic and national
self-determination (Banks 2009b: 11–15). Banks provides the following defi-
nition: “Multicultural education is an approach to school reform designed to
actualize educational equality for students from diverse racial, ethnic, cultural,
social-class, and linguistic groups. It also promotes democracy and social justice”
(Banks 2009b: 13). The aim is educational reform—deep structural changes to
pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, teaching styles, and school culture—that will
provide not only equal learning opportunities but, perhaps even more impor-
tantly, equal learning outcomes for a whole range of diverse students.
Yet, from its inception, multicultural education in the West, like the broader
discourse of multiculturalism, has been a contested concept and project, as it
rests on a set of rigorously debated assumptions at the heart of Western liber-
alism. First, there is disagreement over the relative place of the individual and
the group within democratic societies. Classic liberalism attests to the suprem-
acy of the individual within society and seeks to guard against the ability of the
state or community groups to limit the rights and freedoms of the individual
(Kukathas 1995; Barry 2001). The ideal here is a “color-blind constitution”
which protects the rights and freedoms of each citizen regardless of their cul-
tural or ethnic attachments. Neo-liberals like Will Kymlicka (1995) and Charles
Taylor (1992) argue for the importance of collective rights in democratic socie-
ties and contend that mere tolerance of diversity is not enough. They argue that
past and present inequalities merit a set of “group-differentiated rights,” which
range from self-government and legal protections to financial compensation and
political secession, depending on the specific situation of each group. Only by
active intervention and positive accommodation can democratic states promote
genuine cultural diversity, equality, and tolerance. Yet, critics of multiculturalism
in North America and Europe warn that this celebration of difference under-
mines national cohesion and the shared cultural values that are central to the
inner workings of liberal democracy (Schlesinger 1998; Huntington 2004; Ash
2008; Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010), while others suggest that redistribution
is more important than recognition, and the symbolic “politics of recognition”
fails to address the deeper structural, political, and economic barriers to group
and individual equality within society (Fraser and Honneth 2003).
Second, there is little agreement over the very nature of “culture” at the center
of the multicultural project. Both the liberal and neo-liberal positions tend to
treat cultural groups as sui generis: pristine and unchanging communities fixed
by birth. The essentialism of this “epistemology of entitivity” has come under
fire from postmodern and neo-Marxist critiques (Handler 1988: 6–8). In today’s
globalized world in particular, identities are fluid, multiple, and situational, they
stress, and any attempt to fix diverse peoples into a set of static communities rests
on a reified and unsustainable notion of culture. Rather than viewing cultural
communities as endangered species in need of preservation, “critical multicul-
turalism” takes “culture as a terrain of conflict and struggle over representation”
and seeks to uncover the broader material and structural barriers to social, politi-
cal, and educational equality (May 2009: 36 and passim). Many now view mul-
ticultural education as a global project, one aimed at producing “cosmopolitan
citizens” equipped with a set of transferable skills and values necessary to suc-
cessfully navigate the diverse global community—the sort of fluid hybridity
necessary to feel at home in a range of different cultural milieus (Banks 2009a;
Waldron 1995; Appadurai 1996).
James A. Banks and other neo-liberals claim that multicultural education
has spread transnationally, and is today relevant to different countries and cul-
tures across the globe (Banks 2009a; 2009b; Kymlicka 2004b). Yet, the cultural
relativism at the core of the multicultural project presents a range of problems
for any uncritical application of Western-style multiculturalism to non-Western
cultures and societies like China. As discussed below, the normative values and
ideological precepts that structure the place of ethnic and cultural diversity in the
People’s Republic of China represent an eclectic, and one could argue inarticu-
late, mixture of Chinese and Marxist assumptions that do not necessarily accord
with Western liberalism. It is important to remember that China’s own unique
civilizational context continues to shape and mediate ethnic and cultural diver-
sity within the Chinese schooling system, and any promotion of “multicultural
education” in China must both adapt and find new roots within this context.
Multi-Minzu Education: Confucian Assumptions, Marxist

Framework?
China’s past is a complex patchwork of different philosophical and religious

cosmologies, yet it is widely accepted that Confucianism has helped to mold
the way ethnocultural diversity is viewed today. Confucianism, while far from
a uniform or stagnant body of thought, has a great deal to say about what we
today call “minority” groups and cultures. He Baogang (1998: 31) argues that
Confucian communitarianism “seems to provide strong support for state’s provi-
sions to protect minorities,” through a paternalistic, duty-bound commitment to
the harmonious coexistence of diverse cultural communities. Yet, what others
have termed “Confucian culturalism” is also rigidly hierarchical and potentially
repressive in nature, making a stringent yet fluid distinction between Xia (夏,
Chinese, central, civility, orthodoxy) and Yi (夷, non-Chinese, peripheral, bar-
baric, heterodoxy); with the Xia believed to be responsible for retaining order
and stability, and determining what is best for the Yi, be it temporary exclusion
and autonomy or eventual inclusion and assimilation.
The malleable nature of the Xia/Yi divide meant that non-Chinese groups,
such as the Mongol Yuan and the Manchu Qing imperial courts, could assume
the position of Xia by adopting its normative structures and behaviors. But once
they assumed this mantle of dominance, they too were responsible for policing
the barrier between Xia and Yi and ordering society (He 2005; Leibold 2007).
Over time, the innate superiority of Xia civilization, it was expected, would trans-
form different cultural and ethnic communities into a single, organic whole:
what was traditionally known as a state of “Great Unity” (datong 大同) or “All
Under Heaven” (tianxia 天下), and today inside the PRC, as the bounded, ter-
ritorialized national subjectivity of “Chineseness” (Zhongguoren 中國人) or
the “Chinese nation/race” (Zhonghua minzu 中華民族) (Wang 2012). Unlike
Western liberalism, Confucianism lacks a tradition of individual or group rights
per se, meaning that minority groups and their members are expected to remain
loyal to the state, with disloyalty and the refusal to submit viewed as grounds for
punishment (He 2004; He 2005; Yi 2008: 19–39).
With the establishment of the PRC in 1949, China gradually adopted a new,
equally complex—albeit alien—system of Marxist-Leninist thought on minority
issues, what came to be termed the “national question” (minzu wenti 民族問
題). On the one hand, Marxism-Leninism posits the supremacy of class loyalties
over ethnic and national attachments, yet historical materialism, as interpreted
by Lenin and Stalin, also stipulates that different ethnocultural communities
proceed from a state of barbarism to Communist utopia at their own pace, and
it is the responsibility of the Communist vanguard to protect and promote the
independent development of “backward” ethnic minority groups (He 2005;
Zhou 2009).
While Lenin and Stalin spoke of national self-determination and federal-
ism as the most effective protection, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of
China (CPC) adopted a suite of slightly more circumscribed policies: 1) group
recognition and legal equality for the fifty-six minzu communities identified by
the state; 2) an extensive patchwork of regional ethnic autonomous units that
now covers 64 percent of PRC territory; and 3) a system of preferential treat-
ment policies aimed at fostering the equal yet differentiated “development” (that
is Han-defined social and economic advancement) of minority groups (Leibold
2010b: 5–6). This mix of state/Han-led protection and development is riddled
with contradictions, but shares the same paternalistic, communitarian logic
as the Confucian tradition, with the gradual fusion (ronghe 融合) of the Han
majority and the fifty-five minority groups into a single “Great Unity” remaining
the ultimate goal: what Sun Yat-sen and Liang Qichao described as “the fusing
together in a single furnace” (rong er ru yu yi lu 融而入於一爐), and is today
idealized as a uniquely Chinese version of the “melting pot” (da ronglu 大熔爐)
(Leibold 2007; Yi 2008; Leibold 2012).
The dichotomy between unity and diversity that runs throughout Confucian
and Marxist-Leninist philosophy is reflected in the PRC’s system of minor-
ity education. In order to achieve equality between minzu groups and promote
their development, the PRC education system is premised on treating indi-
vidual groups differently. Yet, in reality, it makes a meta-distinction between
mainstream education for Han students, so-called standard education (zheng-
gui jiaoyu 正規教育), and a special “ethnic education” (minzu jiaoyu 民族教
育) stream for most of the non-Han minority groups. As a part of the ethnic
stream, non-Han minorities are provided with a range of protections and special
benefits: first, there is a distinct budget, set of laws, and bureaucratic provisions
for promoting and implementing minority education; second, there is a range of

specialized minority schools and educational institutions that offer (in theory at
least) a modified curriculum, which allows successful minority students to learn
in their own language from primary to tertiary level; third, minority students
are provided with preferential access to higher education by either lowering the
cutoff level or providing bonus points for minority applicants on the university
entrance exam (gaokao 高考) and access to special remedial classes or dislo-
cated schools to boost their educational outcomes (Borchigud 1994; Postiglione
1999a).
The implementation of these policies is often patchy and market forces con-
tinue to undermine minority protections. Yet, at the same time, the ethnic edu-
cation system has also provided a degree of cultural autonomy for non-Han
peoples and strengthened their sense of ethnic and national belonging. Here
resources are increasingly abundant, but creating a culturally relevant, high
quality, and practical curriculum remain key challenges. At present, pedagogi-
cal outcomes can best be described as mixed, with increased minority access to
higher education but continued high rates of truancy, failure, and dropouts at all
levels, especially among less developed minority groups and those in remote and
nomadic regions, where families still question the value of education (Yi 2008;
Postiglione 2009a; Wang 2009; Postiglione et al., this volume).
In understanding the position of the mainstream and ethnic school systems
in China, it is important to note their relative size. Despite possessing one of the
world’s largest minority populations (Postiglione 2009b: 501), the PRC exhibits
a remarkable degree of ethnic homogeneity, at least at the level of state discourse.
In contrast to the over 30 percent of Australians, 25 percent of Americans and 20
percent of Canadians who fail to identify with the majority “White,” “Caucasian”
or “Anglo-Celtic” identity (Price 1999; Day 2011; Statistics Canada 2008), over
91 percent of PRC’s citizens are officially classified as members of the Han major-
ity. This Han super-majority rests uncomfortably on a series of diverse cultural
and linguistic communities that share a common written language (Mullaney et
al. 2012). But the relatively small populations of those deemed “ethnic minori-
ties” (shaoshu minzu 少數民族) by the Party-state has important implications
for the way ethnocultural diversity is viewed and discussed within Chinese
society as a whole. In other words, size matters and can easily render diversity
nebulous (if not invisible) when overshadowed by the Han behemoth, and when
viewed within the self-limiting parameters of state discourse and categories,
the promotion of ethnocultural pluralism and tolerance in China can appear a
Sisyphean task.
Unlike the mainstreaming of multicultural education in the West, ethnic edu-
cation in China is viewed as something for a select, remedial few, with the values
and promotion of cultural pluralism and ethnic tolerance largely neglected in
the regular state schooling system. Furthermore, the increased pace of market
forces in China, as several of the chapters in this volume clearly demonstrate, are
encouraging more and more minority students to opt for a mainstream educa-
tion conducted in the “national language” (Putonghua 普通話). Market unity,
many in China believe, will ultimately bring cultural and political unity (Ma
2012), with the CPC identifying “leap-frog development” (kuayue shi fazhan 跨
越式發展) of minority regions as the best method for securing social stability
and “Great Unity.” That said, China’s demographic profile is slowly altering as it
expands its presence in the global marketplace. The latest census revealed that
over one half a million “foreigners” (waiguoren 外國人) now call China home
(a figure that many believe is widely underreported), and China’s booming
economy and the increased flow of people and goods across the globe will surely
bring more diverse faces and cultures to Chinese cities, campuses, and factories
in the future (Strickland 2011; Khanna 2013). In light of this trend, Chinese
scholars have begun to rigorously debate the relevance of Western notions of
multicultural education and its relationship to both minority and mainstream
education in contemporary China.
Debating and Defining Minority Education in the PRC
Not surprisingly, Chinese educators and academics offered a range of theoretical

and practical interventions in the global debate over multiculturalism and mul-
ticultural education, embracing a common desire to “indigenize” (bentuhua 本
土化) foreign concepts while evaluating their relevance for a rapidly modern-
izing China. Opinions range widely, with some championing James A. Banks’
model of multicultural education as the best solution for China’s problems (Lin
2008; Yi 2008), while others reject it as largely irrelevant to China’s indigenous
traditions (Yang et al. 1998). Furthermore, many of those that employ the term
“multicultural education” (duoyuan wenhua jiaoyu 多元文化教育) use it in
ways that Banks and other Western practitioners would find surprising, as this
and other Western idioms take on different meanings when employed within a
Chinese context. Take, for example, the concept of bilingual education (shuangyu
jiaoyu 雙語教育): most scholars and state officials stress the importance of
bilingualism, but there is little agreement on its form and significance. As indi-
cated by the different ways authors in this volume employ the term, bilingual
education can be view as either a transitionary tool for promoting Putonghua
and national integration, or a strategy for preserving linguistic and cultural diver-
sity. Furthermore, despite the fact that many Han are technically bilingual (if not
trilingual), speaking Putonghua and at least one “dialect” (fangyan 方言), and
increasingly English, the discourse on bilingual and trilingual language learning
has traditionally been limited to the minorities, where it is viewed as a problem
specific to the ethnic education stream.
As China re-emerged following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, intellectu-
als on the Chinese mainland experimented with different theoretical formula-
tions to legitimize the reform and opening-up process. Drawing on both Chinese
and Western concepts of identity, the eminent sociologist Fei Xiaotong (1989)
proposed a new paradigm for thinking about ethnic relations in the post-Mao
era. Adopting a broad, historical perspective, he argued that Chinese civilization
exhibits a unique duoyuan yiti (多元一體) pattern, a deeply polysemic expres-
sion which literally means “multiple origins, one body,” but which is often ren-
dered into English as “pluralistic unity.”1 Over the course of several millennia, Fei
wrote, different groups who were active across the Chinese geoscape:
. . . mixed, aligned, or integrated, while others were divided and became
extinct. In time the groups which consisted of a number of subunits that
kept emerging, vanishing, and re-emerging, so that parts of some subunits
became a part of others, yet each retained its individual characteristic.
Together they formed a national entity which was at once pluralistic and
unified (Fei 1989: 168).
It should be noted that when Fei first proposed this framework at a public
lecture in Hong Kong, plurality was placed before unity. With Fei describing the
lengthy historical processes by which different ethnic groups interacted and then
integrated into a single Chinese nation/race (Zhonghua minzu 中華民族). For

Fei, the Han majority functioned as a “nucleus of integration,” like a dynamic
yet impure “snowball” (xueqiu 雪球), drawing together diverse peoples and
communities into an eclectic whole (Fei 1989). Some non-Han intellectuals
contended, however, that minority groups, like the Mongols and the Manchu,
also served as the nucleus of ethnic fusion during different historical periods,
and there was little consensus on the place and value of diversity within Chinese
society (Zhou 2007).
In time, Fei’s formulation was applied to the field of education in the PRC, with
a number of Chinese scholars and officials debating its relationship to minority
education and the Western discourse of multicultural education. In an influential
1998 article in Ethnonational Studies (Minzu yanjiu 民族研究), Professor Teng
Xing systematically analyzed a series of indigenous and foreign terms for minzu
education in China, before proposing his own neologism: “multicultural integra-
tion education theory” (duoyuan wenhua zhenghe jiaoyu lilun 多元文化整合
教育理論). This closely paralleled Fei Xiaotong’s idiom, but placed a distinct
emphasis on integration over diversity, or the process of literally bringing dif-
ferent cultures “into conformity” (zhenghe 整合). The state schooling system,
regardless of whether it is the mainstream or minzu stream, “serves a conserva-
tive function by defining and reproducing a national culture that bolsters domi-
nant social structures” (Postiglione 1999b: 3). Diversity is something that can
only be tolerated within a state of unity, as held by the popular Confucian maxim
“harmony without uniformity” (he’er butong 和而不同).
Over the last decade, multicultural education (duoyuan wenhua jiaoyu) has
become a popular buzzword among liberal segments of the PRC academy, part of
what two critics have termed “the flood of trendy theoretical thought streaming
into China” (Wan and Bai 2010). Yet, despite some uncritical usages of the term,
most scholars writing inside the PRC tend to stress the differences between this
alien Western concept and minzu education, with one group arguing “the biggest
difference between Chinese multicultural integration education and western
multicultural education is that unity or integration education is the core. In other
words, it is an integration-centered multicultural education” (Wang et al. 2007:
146).
That said there is also an interesting spatial pattern to the intellectual

responses to the Western discourse on multicultural education in the PRC, with
scholars operating in or near the frontier adopting a more conservative approach
than their counterparts on coastal, metropolitan campuses. Among the former
group, there is concern about a more liberal, open model of multicultural educa-
tion and its implications for maintaining unity and promoting integration among
the diverse populations of the frontier. Meanwhile, in the eastern cities of Beijing
and Shanghai, Western-style multicultural education is viewed more favorably,
as a progressive model for embedding pluralistic tolerance across the educational
curriculum in ways that would apply not only to ethnic minorities, but also to
other culturally and socially disadvantaged groups, such as women and urban
migrants.
Sticking closely to Fei Xiaotong’s theoretical framework, a group of scholars
at Northwest Normal University in Lanzhou warn that multicultural education
theory must be sinicized and cannot be allowed to “transform China” (Wang et al.
2007 and Shao 2010). Two other academics in Lanzhou, Wan Minggang and Bai
Liang (2010: 1), question whether multicultural education theory and practice
in the West, which they admit is “an influential trend in world ethnic education
thought,” should replace the rich, indigenous theoretical basis for minority edu-
cation in China. There is concern here about discursive hegemony and the need
to uphold China’s own unique cultural heritage and locate the “China model.”
To what extent, they ask, does western multicultural education theory possess
universal significance? And is it really a panacea for solving all of the problems
faced by minorities in China today? In summarizing the fundamental differences
between the two, they point to: 1) their different historical origins, with the
North American Civil Rights movement contrasted with China’s constitutional
protections for minority education; 2) their distinct social and political context,
with significant differences in political and cultural appeals, ethnic origin, com-
position and geographic distribution, and existing educational policies; and 3)
their contrasting educational goals, with different pedagogical and implementa-
tion aims. They urge a sharply critical approach to Western-style multicultural-
ism, and stress the importance of upholding Chinese discursive power. Similarly,
Tang Qixiu and Pan Guangcheng (2006) of Southwest University and Southwest
Normal University in Chongqing call for the careful localization of multicultural
education in China. The authors state that multicultural education is a discourse

embedded in a Western political context, and does not reflect the unique demo-
graphic and social context of China. They thus warn of the dangers of any uncriti-
cal and wholesale adoption of multicultural education in China.
On the other hand, some educators in coastal China have adopted a more
open-minded view of the value of multicultural education as it operates in the
West. Zheng Xinrong (2004; 2010) at Beijing Normal University suggests that
multicultural education should be extended to other disadvantaged groups,
beside ethnic minorities. In Shanghai, Zheng Jinzhou (2004) argues that multi-
cultural education, in both research and practice in China, narrowly focuses on
ethnic minorities while in the West it has been broadened to apply to other mar-
ginalized and disadvantaged groups. In spite of their own efforts to indigenize
Western multicultural theory, Teng Xing (1998) and other academics operat-
ing in coastal cities stress the importance of broadening the focus on multicul-
tural education to include not only the minorities but also the mainstream Han
community. The positive values of pluralism and integration should be simul-
taneously transmitted at the level of a common human culture, the mainstream
national culture, and throughout multiple minority cultures.
In the realm of public policy, there have been some modest, albeit encourag-
ing, signs of progress. While the term multicultural education is not deliberately
promoted, policy documents issued by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and
the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) make frequent reference to the
importance of “cultural pluralism” (wenhua duoyuanxing 文化多元性). Like in
the West, the key arena for implementing cultural pluralism lies at the school level,
especially in building a curriculum that promotes understanding and tolerance
of diverse cultural and knowledge systems, and here the ongoing process of cur-
riculum reform is a key avenue for advocates of multicultural education in China.
Both the 2001 Draft Outline of Curriculum Reform in Basic Education and the
2008 Draft Guideline of School Ethnic Unity Education provide an institutional
basis for strengthening and broadening ethnocultural pluralism in the state edu-
cation system, with the former regulation allowing for greater flexibility in using
different cultural and curriculum models and materials at the local level in ethnic
minority regions, and the latter for a greater focus on minority cultures and the
importance of ethnic harmony among the Han majority (China Education and
Research Network 2001; State Ethnic Affairs Commission of PRC 2008). As

one of the major facets of curriculum modernization, the previous emphasis on a
unified national curriculum has been relaxed and decentralized into a three-layer
system: national curriculum, local curriculum, and school-based curriculum. It is
at the local (provincial) and school levels that the values of cultural diversity can
perhaps be most effectively implemented. Jin (2004) calls for the incorporation
of these values as a part of ongoing curriculum reforms, arguing that the diverse
cultures of Chinese minorities can enrich the local and school curriculum, while
suggesting that equal access to educational opportunity is a prerequisite and
basis for curriculum reform. Therefore, educational reform in minority areas,
particularly in western China, should be the main focus.
Balancing Diversity with Unity: The Dangers of Plural

Monoculturalism
As should be clear now, multicultural education is a contested philosophy of

education and society that has no specific parallels in Chinese tradition. Rather
it rests of a series of nested and asserted assumptions that are deeply embedded
in Western liberalism and do not easily translate into the Chinese context. In
this sense, it is more accurate to speak of minority or multi-minzu education in
China. As Naran Bilik (this volume) argues, the Chinese term minzu has multi-
ple glosses, but is often used today as a synonym for “minority,” especially when
contrasted with the mainstream Han education system. But this does not mean
that there is no normative commitment to tolerance, or a moral basis for actively
promoting cultural pluralism in China. Chinese society, like other societies
around the globe, has an unequal terrain of power relations, and the recognition
of diversity in education and the wider society seeks to empower the disadvan-
taged and rebalance power by promoting the equality of educational opportuni-
ties and outcomes.
In advancing cultural pluralism, we need to not only take as our starting point
China’s unique cultural and demographic situation, but also recognize the ways
in which the current minzu system and other sociopolitical structures create
barriers to meaningful ethnocultural interactions. Ma Rong (2012: 168–191)
argues that a shared civic identity has been stymied in China by the existence
of a “dual structure” (eryuan jiegou 二元結構) that creates separate institutional

and cultural spaces for the Han and minority communities. There are a growing
number of scholars and officials in China who are starting to question the value
of minzu categories and argue that these hinder the development of a shared
sense of national belonging while pigeonholing more fluid, grassroots and indi-
vidual forms of ethnocultural diversity. For example, the Executive Director of
the United Front Work Department of the CPC, Zhu Weiqun, recently called
for the removal of minzu status on national ID cards, a freeze on minority auton-
omous regions, and more integrated schooling for Han and minority students
(Zhu 2012). Others, however, like Deputy Secretary General of the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences Hao Shiyuan (2005; 2012) argue that the current
system is still necessary to protect ethnic minorities, preserve cultural diversity,
and foster a harmonious society.
As discussed above, the PRC provides legal equality to all ethnic groups
and specific protections for their cultures and languages through autonomous
regions and ethnic schools. One could dismiss these protections as either super-
ficial or ineffective; but the problem could also be more systemic in nature—
relating to the way ethnocultural diversity is conceptualized and articulated
in modern China. China’s ethnic policies foster an environment that on one
level looks like multiculturalism, or what we might call “multiculturalism with
Chinese characteristics,” but in reality functions more like what Amartya Sen
calls “plural monoculturalism” (Sen 2006; see also Postiglione, this volume). In
this structure, China’s rich ethnic and cultural communities are reduced to fifty-
six distinct and rigid minzu boxes, with each category possessing its own cultural
straitjacket: ethnonym, history, beliefs, festivals, customs, and costumes. These
categories are displayed and propagated throughout the educational and propa-
ganda systems, taking the form of polystyrene dolls, playing cards, statues, and
singing and dancing actors. In terms of education, one’s minzu category (among
other factors, obviously) can predetermine the range of a student’s opportuni-
ties—language of instruction, type of school, and even schoolyard playmates—
which can in turn constrain one’s chances in the job market after graduation.
When conceived of as a singular, fixed category, minzu identity can take on
what Sen (2006) calls “the illusion of destiny,” rather than a flexible category of
self-actualization.
Social identity hasn’t always operated like this in China. During the imperial
period one’s identity was defined by a fluid notion of civility, with so-called “bar-
barians” adopting a sedentary lifestyle and becoming Chinese and central plain
dwellers going “native” on the frontier. As recent as the 1950s, Chinese ethnog-
raphers recorded over four hundred self-designated “minzu” groups in Yunnan
Province alone, including one individual who self-identified as “Japanese”
(Mullaney 2010: 36). But today, state officials find it hard to contemplate ethnic
identity outside the fifty-six minzu categories, as evident by the stilted response
of an official from the SEAC when questioned about the minzu identity of
foreign residents of the PRC:
In the over 60 years since New China was established, we haven’t faced this
sort of question, as they [foreigners] are not a minzu that is native to our
history and locally born and bred . . . currently we do not recognize them
as a minzu but rather can only treat them as a group of foreigners (People’s
Daily 2009a).
Quotidian life is full of cultural and ethnic diversity in China: the

“Koreatowns” of the Wudaokou and Wangjing neighborhoods in Beijing; the
large African migrant community in the southern city of Guangzhou; Kashgar’s
kaleidoscopic old-town; and the ancient Tunbao villages of Guizhou, to provide
but a few examples. Yet state categories can hamstring and even reify this diver-
sity in unnatural ways, not only hindering a shared sense of national belonging
but also the appreciation of ethnocultural pluralism at the scale of the individual
and local communities. Here hundreds of different (many mutually unintelligi-
ble) topolects (that is, regional speech) serve to highlight the rich diversity that
underpins mainstream Han culture, even though they are often considered mere
“dialects” of a unified Putonghua (Mair 1991).
Like religious, racial and civilizational groupings that operate in the West,
China’s own minzu categories rest on what Amartya Sen calls a “solidarist
approach to human identity,” one that renders “us into inmates rigidly incarcer-
ated in little containers” that belie the multiple, fluid, situational, and dynamic
ways in which social identity operates in everyday life (Sen 2006: xiii, xvii). One
might have a single minzu category stamped on their ID card in China, but this
doesn’t mean that Chinese citizens possess only a single ethnic and/or social
identity. While minzu categories in China have taken on a life of their own and
inform state policies and the ways in which ethnic identity is often performed
in China (Gladney 2004; Harrell 2001; Mackerras 1995), they can also retard
the sort of multicultural interactions and tolerance that are central to our shared
yet differentiated humanity, and even worst create a false sense of destiny. What
Ghassan Hage (1998: 105–116) calls “ethnic caging”: the creation of closed dis-
cursive and social spaces for the ethnic Other, which prevents it from “roaming
freely” and interacting with mainstream society, in order to prevent the develop-
ment of a counter-national will.
Does genuine cultural pluralism necessitate “impact integration” (Postiglione,
Zhu, and Jiao 2004), or even conflict, or is it possible for a harmonious multicul-
turalism to evolve in a carefully controlled or compartmentalized environment?
Do cultural and ethnic protections preserve diversity or lead to social isolation
and even atomization in today’s world of rapid mobility and global informational
flows? In order to fully embrace differentiated humanity, don’t people need to
“peer over the fence” and more closely interact with their neighbors, tolerating
their differences while searching for common ground? Finally, can we depend
on market forces alone to harmonize interethnic relations, or do state and civil
society actors have a major role to play in actively regulating, nudging and pro-
moting peaceful and meaningful interactions? The individual chapters in this
volume do not put forward any single, unified answer to these difficult questions.
Rather they interrogate the implications of these larger issues for the processes
and practices of minority education in contemporary China, and some of the dif-
ficult challenges associated with balancing unity and diversity at a national level
while also improving the educational outcomes for all Chinese citizens.
Volume Overview
In contrast to previous scholarship, which has explored the pedagogical and

policy challenges of minority education in China, this is the first volume to recast
these problems in the light of the Chinese Party-state’s efforts to foster cultural
pluralism and national stability through a shared sense of national belonging.
Shunning polemics, it fashions a new agenda for a critically informed yet practi-
cally orientated approach to these complex and controversial issues. The volume
is divided into four separate parts, each tackling specific aspects of minority edu-
cation in China from a range of different perspectives.
Setting the stage for the more empirically informed chapters that follow, Part I
offers three theoretical interventions on the difficulties associated with balancing
unity and diversity in Chinese minority education. As a leading pioneer in the
field, Gerard Postiglione opens the volume by reflecting on the progress since
his pioneering 1999 volume on the topic, and his years of experiences both as a
scholar and advocate of improved educational outcomes for Chinese minorities.
Deeply informed by Western scholarship on multicultural education, Postiglione
argues that China is at a crucial turning point as the rapid pace of economic
and social reforms opens up new divisions and ethnic tensions within Chinese
society. He puts forward two possible directions: the sort of plural monocultur-
alism discussed by Amartya Sen or a more harmonious, and admittedly indig-
enous, form of multiculturalism. Despite some encouraging signs, Postiglione
warns that in terms of educational policy, China appears to be heading in the
direction of emphasizing assimilation over any harmonious acceptance of diver-
sity. When compared to Western multiculturalism, Chinese society, with its rich
vein on culturalism, exhibits a much more conservative form of multiculturalism
than any that currently operates in the West.
Language has long been central, although not irreducible, to identity articula-
tion. And in China, like elsewhere, the language one speaks and studies in helps
to determine not only the parameters of one’s identity, but also interethnic power
relations. In his chapter He Baogang identities a distinct linguistic trajectory over
the longue durée of Chinese history: what he terms a type of “Chinese linguis-
tic imperialism,” which makes multilingual education an unstable, and possibly
untenable, proposition in contemporary China. The spread of Han characters
(Hanzi 漢字), he argues, has closely followed the expansion of Han culture and
political rule—a sort of “soft power” that has resulted in the gradual, yet inextri-
cable decline of alternative, minority languages. He suggests that this history of
linguistic imperialism, as signified by the traditional concept of “Great Unity”
(datong) and the administrative tradition of gaitu guiliu (改土歸流, replacing
native chieftains with Han administrators), serves as a powerful counterbal-
ance to Fei Xiaotong’s duoyuan yiti paradigm, and ultimately presents a serious
barrier to any bona fide and practical multicultural education in China. While
He Baogang stakes out a normative claim for multilingualism, language is but

one element of cultural diversity, and one can point to numerous examples of
ethnicity that is not based on language.
Like He Baogang, Naran Bilik stresses the importance of looking at the “big
picture” when seeking to uncover the relative position of diversity and unity
within Chinese tradition and contemporary society. A bilingual Mongolian
scholar with a deep sensitivity to the subtle ways in which power relations are
embedded in language usage, Bilik argues that despite the presence of Han lin-
guistic imperialism, there remains a distinct “linguistic-cultural anxiety” in the
PRC. On the one hand, there are those that stress the “unity” (yiti) side of Fei
Xiaotong’s formula and call for more emphasis on national integration, while on
the other hand, there are those that emphasize the “diversity” (duoyuan) side
and advocate increased provisions for ethnic pluralism in China. While market
forces have sharpened these contradictions, they are also deeply rooted in the
history of the Asian continent. Seeking to uncover the fluid and unstable plural-
ity of past notions of “China,” Bilik highlights the polysemy of Chinese terms like
minzu, Zhongguo (中國), and Zhonghua (中華) in the Mongolian language, and
suggests that by asking and then validating the different ways “you say China in
Mongolian,” one can shatter the myth of “monocultural centrism” and promote
interethnic understanding in China.
Part II shifts the focus to the PRC’s massive ethnic frontier. Here minority
education is of deep practical concern for policymakers, families, and students.
As the socioeconomic gap between the frontier and coastal cities widens, more
critical questions are being asked about the ability of the current minority edu-
cation system to bridge this gap and equip a new generation of minority youth
for today’s globalized world. Ma Rong, one of China’s leading sociologists and
a former student of Fei Xiaotong, provides a detailed and nuanced overview
of bilingual education in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Charting
the historical development of bilingualism in the TAR since 1952, Ma analyzes
various models for balancing Putonghua and Tibetan language instruction, high-
lighting the differences of opinion among state officials and Tibetan families over
the relative value of both languages, and the best methods for increasing enroll-
ment, promoting high quality educational outcomes, and improving life chances.
He is critical of the current trend that does not require Han students in the TAR
to study the Tibetan language and culture, and stresses the importance of adapt-
ing the model of bilingual education to local conditions. In the end, however,
he stresses the centrality of Putonghua for Tibet, and contends that “if a minor-
ity group does not learn the language of mainstream society—especially those
groups that remain relatively less developed in terms of industrialization due to
historical reasons—their members will be unable to participate in national edu-
cation, economy, and social development. In most cases, these groups will be
marginalized in all aspects. Trapped at the bottom of the social structure, with
almost no access to social mobility to improve their status, ethnic conflicts will
become inevitable.”
The remote, sparsely populated, and harsh environment of the Tibetan
plateau further complicates educational reform in this frontier region. In their
chapter, Gerard Postiglione, Ben Jiao, Li Xiaoliang, and Tsamla survey the chal-
lenges associated with popularizing basic education in these nomadic regions.
Drawing on fieldwork in Nakchu and Ngari prefectures, they identify a signifi-
cant gap between the perceptions and desires of state educators and the families
of Tibetan nomads. While the state is focused on meeting enrollment targets,
most nomadic families continue to question the value of a modern-style educa-
tion, resulting in high rates of truancy and dropout. What is required, they argue,
is a curriculum that is “culturally sensitive, regionally relevant, and responsive
to the realities of the nomadic community.” In particular, they identify the lack
of sufficient vocational training and locally embedded schools and curriculum
as two important hurdles to improving the uptake of basic education among
Tibetan nomads.
The next chapter shifts the focus to Xinjiang, China’s other massive, and at
times, troubled frontier region, with the young Uyghur scholar Zuliyati Simayi
providing a comprehensive and sophisticated survey of bilingualism in the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). She highlights some of the
important accomplishments over the last couple of decades, but also identifies
some of the systemic limitations inherent in the current system. In particular,
she highlights the way in which a minzu-based education, rather than one that
takes the individual as its starting point, can undermine learning and social out-
comes, echoing the debate in Western liberalism over the relationship between
group and individual rights. She concludes: “… one of the essential objectives
of school education should be not only the cultivation of respect for each ethnic
group’s history, culture, and guaranteed development, but also the transforma-
tion of ethnic minorities into equal citizens of the state. The best way to realize
this objective is to promote a mode of multicultural education that targets justice
and equality at the individual rather than group level.”
Yet, in today’s global village, command over two languages is often not
enough. This is especially true in China, where English remains an important
part of the state curriculum, and compulsory for all primary level students in
mainstream schools. In her chapter, Linda Tsung draws on fieldwork in primary
schools in southern Xinjiang to ask what happens to educational outcomes when
English is introduced into a bilingual curriculum in the XUAR. She concludes
that due to poor teaching materials, inadequate teacher training, and limited
resources, Uyghur students struggle to keep up with their Han peers in this sort
of trilingual environment, and the end result is poor academic achievement, and
increased disparity between Uyghur and Han students. This situation is further
exacerbated by the gap between urban and rural schools, with urban schools
and students better equipped for bilingual and trilingual education, while rural
Uyghur students fall further and further behind. Finally, in her opinion, the
government-backed merging of schools in Xinjiang has largely failed to address
these inequalities, with significant barriers remaining in place (linguistic, cul-
tural, and institutional), which prevent any meaningful interethnic interactions
either inside the classroom or on the playgrounds.
Gender issues can further complicate the challenges associated with minor-
ity education, with minority women across the globe often placed in a position
of inferiority and vulnerability when it comes to accessing quality education.
With the support of the Ford Foundation, Professor Teng Xing of Central Minzu
University in Beijing has overseen a long-term project aimed at promoting the
educational opportunities among the Lahu minority girls of the remote and
mountainous Muga Township, which is situated along Yunnan Province’s border
with Burma. In his chapter for this volume, Teng and his colleagues reflect on
the impact of the special classes they helped to create for Lahu girls in 2001, and
chronicle the impressive academic achievements of two cohorts of students.
Putting forward the “Lahu classes” as a successful example of “multicultural inte-
gration education,” they argue that the classes provide their lucky participants
with the rudiments of a modern education—fluency in Putonghua, basic aca-

demic skills, and a cultural toolkit—which enables them to survive outside their
isolated, rural communities. At the same time, they contend that the classes help
the girls to take pride in their indigenous culture and language through the use
of local curriculum materials and pedagogical strategies, while simultaneously
promoting the integration of the Lahu minority into mainstream society and the
cultural diversity of the Chinese nation.
China’s rapid pace of development has fostered greater interregional mobility,
helping to breaking down some of the educational barriers between the frontier
and the coastal cities. In Part III, we probe the environment of minority educa-
tion in China proper and the particular set of challenges facing ethnic minority
students living and studying in the heartland of Chinese culturalism. Four case
studies are presented which collectively explore some of the pathways and barri-
ers confronted by Uyghur, Mongol, and Korean students.
In his chapter, Chen Yangbin suggests that given their different responses to
the growing complexity of the “Xinjiang problem,” Uyghur graduates from spe-
cialized dislocated schools are likely to form a group of new educational elite.
These Uyghur youth, who attend boarding schools in inland cities (so-called
Xinjiang Classes or Xinjiangban 新疆班) and undertake the university entrance
exam in Putonghua, have gained access to universities across inland China,
including some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions. Based on an initial
survey of these graduates, Chen delineates the uniqueness of their experiences
both at university and in their daily lives in eastern China. He demonstrates their
feeling of superiority in terms of educational achievement, which they attempt
to balance with an equally strong sense of representing Uyghur culture and iden-
tity. The chapter also analyzes the implications of this new group of elites when
viewed against the background of identity, multiculturalism and ethnic integra-
tion in China.
Timothy Grose of Indiana University has been conducting field research
among Uyghur students in Beijing since 2006. In his chapter for this volume, he
critically interrogates the relationship between social background and religiosity
among his informants, seeking a better understanding of the complex attitudes
Uyghur students in Beijing have towards Ramadan, the obligatory month long
fast observed by Muslims worldwide. He reminds us how fluid and situational
ethnic identity is outside official state discourse, and warns against the dangers
of reifying educational categories like minkaomin 民考民 (minority students
taking exams in minority languages) and minkaohan 民考漢 (minority students
taking exams in Putonghua), or projecting cultural stereotypes onto them. He
demonstrates how the decision to fast during Ramadan is closely correlated with
family background and personal choice rather than educational background. It
is an important reminder that while state categories might be rigid, quotidian
identity (both group and individual) is anything but.
In her chapter, Zhao Zhenzhou returns our focus to language, examining a
group of ethnically Mongolian university students who are studying outside
their autonomous region following their graduation from an experimental tri-
lingual class in middle school. Echoing He Baogang and other authors in this
volume, she demonstrates how neoliberal market reforms in China are slowly
squeezing out minority languages, like Mongolian, which are increasingly under-
valued within the Chinese marketplace. The emphasis placed on English by
the state and its schools intensifies this problem, as minority students are now
required to master three languages to achieve success in the state educational
system, and often feel like they cannot keep up. Despite some sense of “imagined
empowerment,” Zhao argues that the state has distorted the linguistic market-
place in China by attaching greater symbolic importance to English, despite its
still limited role in Chinese society. She calls for a “diversification of international
language learning in China,” which would allow minority languages to be viewed
as an asset in today’s increasingly globalized world, especially in the current
environment, where we appear to be moving from a unipolar world dominated
by English to a multilingual, multipolar one. In such a context, there should be
greater incentive for both minority and Han students to study a second language
other than English, which could lead to renewed interest in some minority lan-
guages (especially those that are spoken outside of China like Mongolian).
China is home to over one million ethnic Koreans who have long viewed
themselves as part of the Chinese nation while making significant contributions
to the nation’s development. Due to their high educational outcomes, Koreans
are often viewed as a “model minority” in China, a cultural stereotype that can
carry a weighty burden according to Hong Kong-based researcher Gao Fang.
Arguing that multicultural education requires protective and discursive spaces
for minority languages, Gao Fang demonstrates that for ethnic Korean teachers,
at least, the pressure to succeed and live up to the model minority tag has led to
a gradual hollowing out of Korean-Chinese identity. In place of the Korean lan-
guage, which is increasingly devalued, commodified cultural practices like kimchi
and karaoke have come to define the boundaries of Korean identity in China.
Gao’s chapter also highlights the nested yet fluid hierarchy of minzu categories
and identities in the PRC, with several of her Korean informants viewing them-
selves as innately superior to Tibetan and Uyghur students but still inferior to the
Han majority.
Finally, in Part IV, we explore some of the ways in which intellectual styles,
cognitive stereotypes and online identity articulation can hinder the develop-
ment of minority education, creating yet more obstacles to increased opportu-
nities and educational outcomes for some minority students. Professor Li-fang
Zhang of the University of Hong Kong turns her attention to those “intellec-
tual styles,” or pedagogic preferences for learning, that are most conducive for
good educational outcomes in a multiethnic environment like China. She con-
vincingly argues that intellectual styles complicate multicultural education and
stresses the importance of balancing group preferences for learning with individ-
ual cognitive styles. Furthermore, rapidly developing multiethnic societies like
China must navigate the desire to cultivate “the adaptive values of Type I styles,”
which are more propitious to the “creativity-generating” activities of the global
economy, with the more traditional style exhibited by some Chinese minori-
ties like Tibetan and Uyghur students. This is made all the more difficult by the
PRC’s unique ethnic policies, and the inflexibility they can offer at the curricu-
lum level, and, one might add, the institutional scale.
In the PRC, where the majority population exceeds 90 percent, cultural plu-
ralism will remain an uphill struggle without sufficient buy-in from the Han
Chinese. In his chapter, James Leibold examines the PRC’s extensive regime
of affirmative action policies in the state schooling sector. In particular, he
explores Han reaction to the policy that provides extra points to minority stu-
dents, regardless of their socioeconomic and geographic status, on the university
entrance exam (gaokao). Tracking both online and offline reactions to a 2009
incident where a group of Han students in Chongqing falsified their minzu iden-
tity to garner extra points, he argues that the reification of minzu categories in
China and the creation of a system of benefits based on these identities can foster
community resentment and actually hinder the development of genuine cultural
pluralism.
In a similar vein to Leibold’s chapter, Yu Haibo explores the attitudes of Han
university administrators and stresses the importance of listening to and survey-
ing mainstream attitudes on ethnic minorities and minority education. Based on
in-depth and wide-ranging interviews with twenty university administrators in
2010 and 2011, Yu demonstrates how a range of opinions coexists among Han
educators, including discriminatory perceptions of minorities as slow, violent,
or backward. She calls for further education, but also stresses that the minorities
themselves have an important role to play in leading by example, allowing their
own efforts to shine through with the help of their teachers and other educators.
The study of minority education and minority issues more broadly cannot afford
to ignore the majority, and this volume seeks to cast a wider lens on the dynam-
ics of ethnicity, culture, and language in the mainstream and minority schooling
systems in China.
Part I
Diversity in Unity or Unity in Diversity

1
Education and Cultural Diversity in
Multiethnic China
Gerard Postiglione
Thirty-five years after Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 policy of economic reform and
opening to the outside world, China inches closer to becoming the largest
economy in the world, already with the largest system of higher education and
more scientific publications than any other country except the USA (Bloomberg
2010). Students of China’s largest city even outperformed those in other coun-
tries in a major international assessment of mathematics and science achieve-
ment (OECD 2010; Royal Society 2011). Yet, domestic economic disparities are
becoming a major concern. The Gini coefficient rose from 0.41 in 2000 to 0.61
in 2010 (Kao 2012). Such inequality could derail gains in education, dampen
economic growth, lead to a waste of human capital, and reduce social cohesion
(ADB 2012). If social inequalities are compounded by intercultural misunder-
standings, they could fuel ethnic conflicts and weaken national integration. This
is especially relevant in the Tibetan and Uyghur regions of western China where
uprisings since 2008 caused many Han Chinese to become less sympathetic and
more frustrated with ethnic minority demands.
Government officials and scholars respond in different ways. One official
asserted that ethnic conflicts are a normal aspect of life in many countries and
China’s 1.3 billion people enjoy relative harmony, another advocated doing away
with the current format of national identity cards indicating a Chinese citizen’s
ethnic group (Zhu 2012). A prominent scholar of ethnic minority relations high-
lighted the politicizing of ethnic issues in earlier decades and the establishment
of ethnic autonomous regions, including Xinjiang and Tibet (Ma 2009).
In short, ethnic unity and national integration remain matters of national
urgency. Despite the debates about how to best achieve it, both government and
28 Gerard Postiglione
academia agree that education in a multiethnic society has a major responsibil-

ity to moderate ethnic conflicts, promote interethnic trust, and ensure national
unity. This essay raises three questions about education and national integration:
How has the Chinese concept of ethnicity been affected by market reforms? How
is education responding to the challenge of ethnic unity? Can a more multicul-
tural form of education promote educational equality and national integration?
Multiculturalism, Cultural Assimilation, and Education
The concept of multicultural education has made little headway in China. The
idea that multicultural education can promote national integration is often
met with skepticism by political leaders, not only in China but elsewhere in
the world. One European leader stated unequivocally that attempts to build a
multicultural society have “utterly failed” (Guardian 2010). German Chancellor
Angela Merkel scoffed at the so-called multikulti concept—where people would
“live side-by-side” happily. For Merkel, immigrants need to do more to integrate.
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has criticized multiculturalism saying
that under the “doctrine of state multiculturalism” different cultures have been
encouraged to live separate lives (BBC 2011).
Kymlicka (2004a: xiv) scoffs at such critics of multiculturalism who sub-
scribe to a “zero-sum conception of identity.” Ladson-Billings (2004: 112) adds
that: “People move back and forth across many identities, and the way society
responds to these identities either binds people to or alienates them from the
civic culture.” Banks (2008, 2010b), whose book on multicultural education was
translated and published in China, is more specific: “Nationalists and assimila-
tionists around the world worry that if citizens are allowed to retain identifica-
tions with their cultural communities they will not acquire sufficiently strong
attachments to their nation-states.” He further adds that, “identity is multiple,
changing, overlapping, and contextual, rather than fixed and static—and that
thoughtful and clarified cultural identifications will enable people to be better
citizens of the nation-state” (2008: 133).
China’s ruling ideology does not deny its multiethnic reality. The esteemed
Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong (1980, 1989, 1991) put forward a notion
of China as an “ethnic plurality within the organic unity of the Chinese nation”
Education and Cultural Diversity in Multiethnic China 29
(Zhonghua minzu duoyuan yiti geju 中華民族多元一體格局). This guiding

concept of Chinese ethnicity, simply stated as “plurality within unity,” sets out
how nationalities (minzu 民族) (or the increasingly used term zuqun 族群,
ethnic groups) operate within the scope of China’s long history in which Chinese
were formed by the assimilation of hundreds of ethnic groups throughout the
thousands of years of Chinese civilization (Bilik 2000).
This is the extent of Fei’s notion of multiculturalism. The process for China is
more akin to straight-line assimilation theories than contemporary multicultur-
alism (Beckett and Postiglione 2011). Thus, while the rest of the world has been
experiencing the birth of many new nations, China’s territorial sovereignty has
grown stronger since the establishment of the PRC in 1949. This includes the
return of Hong Kong in 1997 and Macau in 1999 under the “one country, two
systems” arrangement, also proposed by Beijing for Taiwan’s return, as well as the
state’s uncompromising position on Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as several island
territories currently under international dispute in the South and East China
seas.
The Marxian subtheme inherent in Fei’s notion of “pluralism within unity” is
that ethnic stratification is a result of the cultural backwardness of ethnic minori-
ties. Thus, the message received by many ethnic minorities is: to be Han is to
be modern. While minority songs, dress, and dances are celebrated and ethnic
artifacts are preserved, the prescription for modernization includes education as
cultural assimilation. Not surprisingly, this is reflected in contemporary school
practices.
Most educational practices are commonly guided by national themes deter-
mined by the Ministry of Education. One of the most influential themes in cur-
riculum development is advanced by the national campaign to support China’s
modernization through science and education (kejiao xingguo 科教興國).
Not surprisingly the school curriculum places a heavy emphasis on patriotism.
Required courses in moral and political education aim to address social disloca-
tions resulting from the market economy by championing the theme of a “har-
monious society” (hexie shehui 和諧社會). Yet, there are also new initiatives to
increase the relevance of school curricula to local conditions. National education
reform permits some flexibility to transmit a small proportion of local knowl-
edge in a school-based curriculum. Thus, one manifestation of a multicultural
theme in school curriculum was the rejuvenation of localized teaching materi-

als (xiangtu jiaocai 鄉土教材). This movement, promoted by scholars at Minzu
University in Beijing, constitutes what some view as a step in the direction of
multicultural education. However, this movement continues to remain on the
periphery of curriculum development. Another case of note is the initiative of
intellectuals of the Naxi minority of Lijiang, Yunnan province, to develop school
curriculum about their Naxi cultural heritage. Transmitting knowledge about
cultural heritage is less sensitive in the case of the Naxi who share a Confucian
heritage with the Han Chinese and have no separatist aspirations (Yu 2010). In
Xinjiang and Tibet, local curricula are more carefully monitored so as to elimi-
nate any knowledge of ethnic histories that could uncouple ethnic minority sen-
timents from national themes.
In most large cities, Han Chinese students have little contact with or knowl-
edge about the nearly 120 million ethnic minorities, most of whom reside in
western regions of the country. Students in Guangzhou, for example, may have
as much chance of meeting foreigners, including African businessmen, as ethnic
minorities from western China (Zhou Min 2012; Bodomo 2012). This will
change as migration patterns continue and urban ethnic enclaves become more
common. Since most ethnic minorities occupy the less developed regions of
China’s far west, students in coastal cities learn what little they know about them
from a few lessons in their school subjects of history and politics, as well as from
representations of ethnic culture presented in television documentaries. In short,
school textbooks in China’s major cities give little play to ethnic minority topics.
However, after the 2008 and 2009 unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, the government
supported production of a series of new textbooks, under the title of National
Unity Educational Materials (Minzu tuanjie jiaocai 民族團結教材), which was
to become required study for all secondary school students nationwide. Thus far,
the textbooks have not become widely used in schools.
Theory and Reality: Pluralism within Unity or Critical Pluralism
While Fei Xiaotong provided a way to view ethnic plurality and economic
reform within the context of China’s diverse cultural history, he could not have
fully anticipated the speed and character of economic globalization or China’s
growing need to project its soft power onto a multicultural world. In an era of
rapid economic globalization, the shift from a planned to a market economy has
challenged poor ethnic minority communities to adapt their value systems to
market forces and urban living environments (Wang 2008). Migration to and
from ethnic minority areas has changed the character of social interaction in
China’s expanding marketplace, making it far more multiethnic than ever before.
As migration becomes more frequent, economic disparities become more
salient. This is paralleled by a rapid increase in the use of the Internet and mobile
technology that brings information in and out of ethnic communities faster than
ever before. Better roads and infrastructure make travel to previously inaccessi-
ble ethnic minority regions much easier. Not surprisingly, migration, informa-
tion flows, and accessibility make social inequalities and cultural differences
more visible and present greater challenges to the national campaign to build a
harmonious society.
In short, social change, cultural misunderstanding, and ethnic conflict brought
about by the economic reforms and China’s opening to the outside world are
challenging Fei Xiaotong’s concept of pluralism within unity. Instead, the state
of ethnic relations in western regions of the country has moved toward a critical
pluralism: a stage in which cultural differences became intensified by economic
disparities and unequal opportunities in the marketplace, workplace, and school.
Toward Plural Monoculturalism or Harmonious Multiculturalism
Critical pluralism carries a risk that ethnic minority communities may confound
the process of national integration by retreating back into their ethnic spaces and
placing a singular emphasis on their ethnic heritage to the detriment of knowl-
edge and understanding about other ethnic groups in the nation. Such a trend
promotes a state of plural monoculturalism (Sen 2006; Heberer 1989; Harrell
2001; Gladney 1999, 2004; Sautman and Dreyer 2006). In this scenario of
growing ethnic isolation, minorities become frustrated by a lack of opportunities
in the national economy and social mainstream. As ethnic communities begin
to see their survival as solidly dependent on inherited ethos, the ability of young
people to reason about the kinds of decisions that all children of the nation must
engage with becomes impaired, whether it be about finding a job, building a
family, or improving their quality of life in their communities. This state of ethnic
relations is described by Amartya Sen in his book Identity and Violence as “a col-
lection of sequestered segments, with citizens being assigned fixed places in
pre-defined segments” (2006:165). For western China, this scenario would see
groups, such as Uyghurs and Tibetans, left with limited options for their residen-
tial, educational, and occupational opportunities. In short, for groups without
viable opportunities within the national mainstream, social capital strategies
emphasize deepening ties to those who share a cultural affinity.
The stage of critical pluralism in western China can also veer in the opposite
direction—toward a relatively harmonious multiculturalism in which education
enriches knowledge and understanding to promote trust, interethnic cultural
vitality, and equitable access to economic opportunities. The degree to which
ethnic intergroup relations move in one direction or another over the long term
depends to a great extent on the education of the next generation, especially
since the current era is the first in which every citizen of China will attend nine
years of basic schooling, and by 2020, twelve years.
In theory, a multicultural education would be more integrative in its practices
and more likely to promote a harmonious society. Many Chinese scholars would
question the logic of contemporary multiculturalism as being too closely tied
to the experience of Western civilization and of limited relevance to contempo-
rary China. Still, an advocacy of a relatively harmonious multiculturalism has a
cultural-historical basis in China’s Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions.
This does not deny the historical periods of ethnic strife in China, but it does
recognize cultural harmony as the unifying theme in China’s long history. At the
same time, it has to be recognized that in certain historical periods, harmony was
more imposition than choice. China has an opportunity in the contemporary
world to produce and promote its own model for ethnicity, as it has an alterna-
tive model of economic development. Yet, more is needed to create an innova-
tive view of the role of multicultural education in addressing the challenges to
national integration.
In summary, more than three decades of economic reform has created condi-
tions leading to a critical pluralism in which social inequalities have intensified
ethnic intergroup relations in western China. In this context, multicultural edu-
cation is effective to the extent that it promotes recognition of cultural diversity
in educational practice, which in turn opens pathways to the academic success of

ethnic minorities. The extent to which ethnic minority students find wider path-
ways to top schools and universities comparable to those of urban Han Chinese
will help determine whether critical pluralism in western China evolves in the
direction of plural monoculturalism or harmonious multiculturalism.
Education’s Response to Cultural Diversity
In a 1999 volume entitled China’s National Minority Education: Culture, Schooling

and Development, I posed the following questions:
To what extent do schools in China create an atmosphere that has posi-
tive institutional norms toward diverse cultural groups within the nation
state? To what degree do schools in China modify their total environment
to make it more reflective of the ethnic diversity in society? (Postiglione
1999b: 4)
At the time, social scientists were beginning to address these questions. While
sociologists (Lamontagne 1999; Sautman 1999b) documented the degree of
inequalities in educational access and achievement, and the policies designed
to address disparities, anthropologists conducted field studies among particular
ethnic communities. For example, Gladney (1999: 64) pointed out the lack of
knowledge that Han students get from school about Islam. Mackerras (1994,
1995, 1999: 47) noted that the few clerics that teach in state schools have to dress
in secular clothes while in school. Harrell and Ma (1999: 213) attributed the
poor school performance of Yi minority students to a folk theory of success that
saw Han Chinese performing better in school due to the cultural backwardness
of ethnic minorities. In a similar vein, Hansen (1999b: 257) pointed out that
the wish of Dai minority students to learn their own script runs the risk of them
being viewed as backward in school. Upton (1999: 307) recounted her experi-
ence in Tibetan language schools of Aba prefecture, Sichuan province, where the
textbooks contained a fair amount of material drawn from Tibetan sources that
were still relevant to Tibetan cultural life in a broad sense.
Since the volume’s publication in 1999, more empirical research, including
that contained in the chapters of this volume, has addressed the need for multi-
cultural education in China. Research in minority regions focused on multiple
factors ranging from language and religion to gender and family background
(Hannum 2002; C. Lee 1986; M. Lee 2001; Lam 2005; Zhou and Sun 2004; Yi
2005a, 2005b; Tsung 2004; Cheung 2009). Other work has examined university
students’ ethnic identities in provincial or special universities (Lee 2001; Trueba
and Zou 1994; Clothey 2005). Less research has focused on preferential school
policies for ethnic migrant children (Iredale et al. 2001; Zhou and Hill 2010).
There is also a growing literature on the education of specific ethnic groups, espe-
cially Tibetans (Bass 1998, 2008; Bangsbo 2008; Nyima 1997, 2000; Postiglione
2007, 2008, 2009a; Postiglione et al. 2005, 2006a, 2006b, 2009, 2011; Seeberg
2006, 2008; Wang 2007; Wang and Zhou 2003; Yi 2010; Zhang et al. 2008,
2012; Zhu 2007).
More scholars based on the Chinese mainland have carried out ethnographic
field research in remote ethnic minority communities. Yi Lin (2008), in his eth-
nography of Muslim and Buddhist communities of Qinghai province in western
China, describes in detail how Chinese culturalism marginalizes ethnic minori-
ties. Rather than leading to a harmonious multiculturalism that expands school
access to diverse cultural learning environments, Chinese culturalism in the
school curriculum draws ethnic minority cultures into an acculturation process
viewed as essential to national unity. Research by Qian Minhui (2007) examined
how the hidden curriculum creates discontinuities within cultural traditions and
ethnic identities. Ba (2007), a member of the Yugur ethnic minority of Gansu
province, studied the manner in which schools disseminate both ethnic minority
and modern culture and argued that there is an estrangement and disjuncture
between the culture of the classroom and the community as a result of the choice
to absorb the national plan of instruction.
Bilingual Education and Educational Outcomes
Bilingual education remains one of the most visible indicators of a state’s posi-
tion on multicultural education. Stites (1999) is one of the earliest overseas
scholars to examine the history of language policies in minority education and
China’s aim to use bilingual education to produce cadres that are both ethnic
and expert. Yet, language policies have alternated between what Zhou (2011)
calls pluralistic and integrationist approaches, emphasizing accommodation and
assimilation, respectively. Since 1949, there has been a historic shift from plural-
ist to assimilationist policies for minority languages in education (Zhou and Sun
2004). Even today, tension surrounds the state’s effort to define itself as a multi-
ethnic nation with ethnic autonomous regions while promoting multicultural-
ism and use of indigenous languages.
According to Zhou (2003), school access rates in ethnic autonomous regions
remained low until pluralistic language policies returned in the 1980s as part of
a multilingual ideology that encouraged the use of indigenous languages. Teng
(2002b) carried out an extensive field study of the Yi minority in Liangshan,
Sichuan province, pointing out the obstacles to high-quality bilingual education.
Ma’s findings in a study of Xinjiang’s minorities reveal that language of instruc-
tion plays a crucial role in school achievement and that there is an increase in
support for Chinese as the medium of instruction among ethnic minority parents
(Ma 2011a). Wang and Postiglione (2008) pointed out a renewed willingness to
experiment with a written script for school-based learning among the Dongxiang
minority children because their levels of literacy were the lowest in China. The
various difficulties associated with implementing genuine bilingual educa-
tion are noted in chapters by He, Teng et al., Tsung, and Zhao in this volume.
Among commonly cited problems are: teachers’ inability to teach bilingually and
ethnic language textbooks translated directly from materials originally written in
Chinese, but not adapted to minority students’ learning needs.
The potential of multiculturalism to address some of the challenges of bilin-
gual education in China has not been extensively studied. The case in Tibet is
special because the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) is the only provincial-
level ethnic autonomous region where the minority group constitutes a majority
of the population, in this case over 90 percent, except in the capital city of Lhasa.
While most students and teachers are Tibetan, mainstream education is oriented
toward an inculcation of mainstream Chinese culture. Nevertheless, the goal of
popularizing nine years of basic education would not have been possible without
the Tibetan language as the medium of instruction throughout the first six years
of school. Needless to say, the dropout rate rises quickly as students reach junior
secondary school where the medium of instruction switches to Chinese.
There are many multilingual societies in the world where the medium of
instruction becomes an emotive and politicized issue, and the same is the case
for Tibetan regions of China (Nyima 1997; Bass 1998; Upton 1999). When the
government tried to decrease the emphasis on Tibetan language in a secondary
school in Rebkong, Qinghai province, students went to the streets to protest.
Few Tibetans advocate not learning any Chinese and most realize that Chinese
is needed in a market economy. However, much research in China and elsewhere
confirms that learning in one’s first language is more efficient. The manner in
which bilingual education is implemented also reflects the degree of tolerance
for multicultural education.
Native language remains a key dimension of a viable program of multicul-
tural education and China has done more than many industrialized countries
by providing school textbooks in minority languages. However, as nine years of
basic education spread and enrollment rates reached nearly 90 percent, the trend
in medium of instruction shifted from an emphasis on native language to one
on Chinese. In short, native language as a medium of instruction may become
viewed as simply a short-term measure. Moreover, among the Tibetans and
Uyghurs, the issue is sensitive as there is a tendency on the part of some officials
to interpret an advocacy of native language as a medium of instruction with a
separatist cause rather than an educational cause.
Case Studies of Ethnic Minority Responses to School Environments
The 1990s saw an increase in qualitative fieldwork data about ethnic diversity
in education. This helped better explain the manner in which minority stu-
dents constructed their cultural identities and why minority children have high
dropout rates. Several anthropological case studies of Mongol, Tibetan, Uyghur,
Naxi, and Korean minority groups completed around the turn of the century
illustrate the themes of education and national integration. A common concern
in all of these studies is about how critical pluralism is addressed in education,
including how state schooling aims to promote unity from diversity; how minor-
ities construct ethnic identities; how minorities employ social capital to build
solidarity in boarding schools; how minorities become marginalized by a lack of
cultural recognition in university; how ethnic migrants experience double dis-
crimination in urban schools; how minority students balance ethnic and national
identities; how minorities respond to stereotypes about school success; and how
rural minorities make rational decisions about keeping their children in schools.
Zhu Zhiyong (2007) explores how minority students in state boarding

schools construct ethnic identities and the specific modes used by individual
students. Specifically, Zhu studies the education of TAR Tibetans in Chinese
cities located in the interior. Tibetans have had a written language for over 1,500
years—one that is in common use across a territory as large as the continental
USA. Despite a rich cultural heritage, Tibet has the lowest educational levels of
any provincial level entity in China. Doubtless, this has something to do with
poverty and remote geographical location. Therefore, schools and classes for
Tibetan students were relocated to Chinese cities beginning in 1985 where
better school facilities and trained teachers could be used to foster talent to
drive Tibet’s economic development. In the first year, one-quarter of all primary
school graduates were sent to relocated schools in China for four years of junior
secondary education and three years of senior secondary or vocational educa-
tion. While the number of students attending these schools has remained steady,
the proportion has decreased.
Zhu provides a grounded view of what actually happens in these schools
through the eyes of Tibetan students. He also illustrates the contestation over
the meaning of Tibetan culture: who defines it, and how students innovate in
constructing their identities around that definition. While the school attempted
to assign a desired identity in accordance with the state’s ideologies, the Tibetan
students were able to assert a Tibetan identity expressed through the representa-
tion of Tibetan culture, as well as influenced by their experiences on and off their
school campus.
Chen (2008) and Chen and Postiglione (2009) examine how Uyghur stu-
dents in the so-called Xinjiang Classes (Chinese boarding schools located
outside of their home province of Xinjiang) respond to the schools’ goal of
ethnic integration. Guided by the theoretical framework of social capital anal-
ysis, the study’s findings suggest that Uyghur students’ response to the goal of
ethnic integration can be viewed within a series of analytical levels, including the
history of the Uyghurs within China, the Xinjiang boarding schools as a formal
organization, Uyghur students’ social networks, communal norms and sanc-
tions, and Uyghur students’ social actions in the Xinjiang Classes.
Chen’s study found that the Uyghur students have created “bonding social
capital” within the daily social practices pertaining to their ethnic norms and
sanctions. Their social practices set ethnic boundaries and demonstrate resist-
ance to the schools’ goal of ethnic integration. The students have also created a
linking social capital to tap into the resources of peers, staff, and teachers. This
improves their academic performance and helps them adapt to life in these
boarding schools. Nonetheless, they lack “bridging social capital” which con-
nects them with students and teachers of other ethnic groups, thus making
the goal of ethnic integration more difficult to achieve. The study explains the
Uyghur students’ responses as a form of social recapitalization. While boarding-
school life limits the acquisition of social capital from their families and com-
munities in Xinjiang, students develop new forms of social capital among ethnic
peers on campus to help facilitate their academic success.
Zhao (2010) examines the cultural dimension of ethnic minority students
and concludes that minority culture is marginalized on university campuses.
Zhao explores ethnic minority cultural recognition at universities through a
multi-case study focused on Mongol undergraduate students’ experiences and
perceptions. She examines the institutional obstacles to cultural recognition in
higher education—despite the state and university discourses of equal access to
learning through preferential admission policies. Zhao reports on three particu-
lar institutions: one governed by an ethnic autonomous region; one governed
by the State Ministry of Education; and one governed by the State Ethnic Affairs
Commission. Zhao’s research casts doubts on the extent to which these universi-
ties recognize Mongol culture. She asserts that Mongols are a “decorated culture,”
marginalized within the context of university life and few Mongol students speak
the Mongol language on campus. She also notes the complex layering of iden-
tities between minkaomin (民考民) and minkaohan (民考漢) students—the
former enter university by taking the examination in their native language and
the latter take it in Chinese. Not unexpectedly, the university governed by the
Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region gave more attention to Mongol culture
than the other two universities. Zhao acknowledges that preferential admission
policies help Mongol students, but concludes that the lack of cultural recognition
on the part of universities limits meaningful access to higher education in China
for its ethnic minorities, thereby sustaining their patterns of underachievement.
Yu (2010) studies state schooling and Naxi minority identity construction.
She examines Naxi secondary school students’ experiences, as well as the role
played by Naxi intellectuals in students’ identity resurgence since the 1980s. The
changing roles of school, community, and family in identity construction suggest
that Naxi students retain a strong Naxi identity by inheriting the knowledge,
values, and worldview of their ethnic group, while also managing to fit into main-
stream culture. Three forces affect identity construction of the Naxi students: the
state and the school; the Naxi intellectuals; and socialization in the family and
community. As an institution of the state, the school conveys national ideology
and instills a sense of ethnic unity and an understanding of the culture of the
Chinese nation. While the school takes an active role in ethnic identity construc-
tion of the Naxi students, particularly Naxi intellectuals—through their research
publications—respond to policies and activities so as to revitalize Naxi culture.
A relatively harmonious process characterizes Naxi identity construction. Two
factors contributed to this harmonious identity construction. First, since the late
1970s, the identity of ethnic minority groups has gained recognition in China,
while at the same time market forces have been creating assimilationist pres-
sures. Some minorities were able to take steps to revive the use of their native lan-
guages, and to demand that their knowledge about their native cultures be taught
in the schools. Second, the Naxi already have a long historical tradition of inte-
grating well into Han Chinese culture. Confucianism and interactions with Han
Chinese over several hundred years heavily influence their traditional education.
The study contributes to an understanding of why Naxi students adapt generally
better than many other ethnic minority groups in China to state schooling.
Gao (2008, 2010b) studies ethnic Koreans in China, a group widely recog-
nized as a model minority primarily for their academic success rates which are
above the national average in China. This research examines how Korean ele-
mentary-school students construct meaning out of the model minority stereo-
type in the context of their school and home experiences, and how this meaning
construction impacts their educational aspirations and strategies in peer net-
works. Through comparative analysis, Gao notes that, in a variety of cultural
contexts, ethnic Koreans survive as a distinct group that participates in the main-
stream without being completely assimilated. Koreans in China and the United
States are believed to pull themselves up by their cultural predispositions. This
research points to the continued need to modify the model minority stereotype
that tends to essentialize ethnic Koreans as a homogeneous group with specific
academic attitudes and success. Research results argue that the model minority
stereotype may actually reinforce the cultural deficiency argument about the
academic failure of backward minorities, silence the disadvantages suffered by
ethnic Koreans, and prevent any active intervention to remedy them.
Wang (2008) examines how the children from four different ethnic minor-
ity groups try to adapt to life in Beijing after their parents migrate there to find
work. Upon arrival, most are excluded from mainstream urban life. They experi-
ence double discrimination due to differences in cultural traditions, especially
language and religion, which compounds the challenge of social integration into
urban life. Wang found that children and their families experience discrimina-
tion—as both migrants and ethnic minorities—in the process of striving to gain
a sense of urban membership. The study provides a more nuanced explanation of
the sociological dynamics surrounding the experiences of rural ethnic migrants
in a rapidly changing urban society in China.
Hong (2013) conducted fieldwork in a Hui Muslim community of western
China and found that Muslims in rural areas are responding to a powerful state
and a far-reaching marketization. He characterizes their type of rationality as set
within a localized binary framework in which public education is marginalized in
favor of religious education. However, increasing marketization and migration to
urban areas has led to a changed view of the usefulness of state schools. As more
local Muslims travel to eastern coastal areas where the Han majority resides, the
binary framework of religious education and state schools is gradually under-
mined. To more Muslims, the migrant experience contributes to a construc-
tion and reinforcement of their Chinese identity and decreases hostile attitudes
toward public education, which they often consider to be Han education.
Diversity with Chinese Characteristics: Multicultural Formats for

Education
China’s concept of cultural diversity might be traced as far back as the Confucian
notion of “harmonious yet different” (he’er butong 和而不同). However, the
international scholarship on multicultural education did not have its origins
in China. It is basically an American concept, developed since the 1970s to
address ethnic tensions among white ethnics and African Americans, though
it has evolved in many directions since then. The study of multicultural educa-
tion focuses on the strategies and materials in education that promote a demo-
cratic environment for the discussion of ethnic issues. It is a field of study that
gives as much attention to ethnic minority cultures as it does to mainstream
culture. It also aims to build theories about how different ethnic cultures inter-
act and shape the mainstream culture. As part of the process of learning, mul-
ticultural education promotes critical thinking. It recognizes cultural pluralism
as an element in reforming schools and providing all students, regardless of
their ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, or family income, an equal chance in
school and the labor market. Banks (2008) identifies five dimensions of mul-
ticultural education: (1) content integration—integrating content relevant to
ethnic minority communities into the school curriculum; (2) the knowledge
construction process—emphasizing how knowledge is socially constructed; (3)
prejudice reduction—educating children in ways that reduce ethnic prejudice;
(4) an equity pedagogy—teaching in ways that support the dignity, individual-
ity, and equal rights of students; and (5) empowering school culture and social
structure—creating an atmosphere and ethos in schools that drives students to
become active citizens who shape their community life and future. In short, mul-
ticultural education evolved as a form of critical pedagogy and empowerment.
There are, however, conservative, liberal, and pluralist forms of multicultural
education, as well as left-essentialist and critical positions on multiculturalism.
Where China falls on this spectrum is a work in progress.
The scholarship on multicultural education in China also contrasts with that
in Latin America, where Paolo Friere (1968) pointed out that communities are
not built simply on consensus but on “unity in diversity.” Though still aligned
with Fei’s concept of diversity in unity, Chinese scholars continue to develop
new approaches to multiculturalism. Wang Minggang (2006) has conducted
extensive empirical work on ethnic minority education in China’s northwestern
region, and Jin (2006) has tried to do the same for ethnic minorities in the south-
west region. Zheng Xinrong (2010) has conducted research on ethnic minority
women in many areas of China and contends that China has “established its own
theory and practice of multicultural education, which focuses not only on ethnic
minority education, but also the education of women, the disabled, migrants,
and the marginal socio-economic groups.” She advocates education for equal
rights, cross-cultural understanding, and the elimination of social and cultural

discrimination. Scholars based in China continue to consider the relevance of
multicultural education for China and have increasingly engaged scholars from
other parts of the world in conferences and discussions (Teng 2002a).
The ultimate aim of multicultural education anywhere in the world is to reform
schools and universities in such a way that students form diverse cultural groups
can be assured of cultural recognition, equality of educational opportunity, and
inclusion into the mainstream of society. Nevertheless, multicultural education
does not develop in a vacuum but rather in the context of particular societies
and nations. As ethnic minorities differ, so do the approaches and implementa-
tion of multicultural education. As multicultural education continues to develop
and become sustained over the long term, its aim remains the same–to increase
equality and social justice.
Conclusion
Pluralism is as important as harmony in conceptualizing ethnic intergroup

processes in China, and has been a source of much cultural vitality in the past.
For much of its history, China was a highly pluralistic area of the world guided
by a culturalist tradition that assimilated many groups into its cultural center
(Dikötter 1992). At about the time of the incursions of the Western powers into
China during the nineteenth century, this began to change, and by the twentieth
century, China began to adopt the policies of the former USSR. This amounted
to a more politicized set of themes that led to the establishment of ethnic autono-
mous regions. There are a number of scholars in China who now suggest that
China return to its characteristically culturalist position so as to strengthen
national identity among its ethnic minorities (Ma 2007b).
In fact, ethnic minority education policies and practices since the founding
of the People’s Republic of China have paralleled the changing political climate.
After the revolution in 1949, the government worked with ethnic minority elites
to integrate diverse territories into the national fabric on an equal basis (Dreyer
1976). Ethnic minority groups were identified and minority languages were rec-
ognized and supported. However, political campaigns that stressed class strug-
gle resulted in less generous policies toward ethnic minority cultural vitality. The
Cultural Revolution (1966–76) wrought havoc on cultural traditions of ethnic

minorities. This was followed by a national effort to redress past wrongs, which
was accompanied by a resurgence of ethnicity and ethnic cultures.
As the reform period continues to unfold, China’s society finds itself in a phase
of critical pluralism. This phase of increased interethnic contact as a result of eco-
nomic reforms, market forces in daily life, and opening to the outside world has
increased the saliency of ethnic identity. The changing nature of ethnic pluralism
has placed Chinese society at a crossroad in the western regions of Xinjiang and
Tibet. Ethnic intergroup relations could move in one of two directions: toward
a western region of plural monoculturalism in which ethnic minority groups
emphasize their cultural identities above those of the nation and limit their
potential to take on multiple roles in national development, or toward a western
region of harmonious multiculturalism that would align with the Confucian tra-
dition of “harmonious yet different” and coincide with the state’s campaign for a
harmonious society. China is not ready to fully embrace multicultural education,
but the Chinese model of multiculturalism continues to evolve. What China
does in drawing upon lessons of the distant and recent past will come to have
broad global implications and add to its responsibility by virtue of its new inter-
national status as the largest multiethnic country in the world.
2
The Power of Chinese Linguistic
Imperialism and Its Challenge to
He Baogang1
Introduction: Linguistic Trends and Protests
China is a multilingual society and has practiced multilingual teaching for many
years; this is likely to continue. The fifty-five recognized minorities in the PRC
use more than 120 different languages (Sun 2004). The expansion of Chinese
state power and the power of the market into all corners of China, however,
has resulted in a dramatic spread of Putonghua across China, which has slowly
diluted the prominence of minority languages.
There now seems to be a tendency towards the strengthening of Putonghua,2
as indicated by a number of factors: the decline in the use of minority languages
(for example, Tibetan was the most commonly used language in Tibet through
the 1980s, but now it is second to Putonghua in many communities); the
increasing use of Putonghua as an official teaching language in minority areas;
the use of Putonghua in official meetings involving minorities; and the lack of
incentives for those Han Chinese who work in minority areas to study minority
languages (See Evans 2010; Feng 2009; Lin 1997). In 1992, the PRC Ministry
of Education issued the Method for Practicing HSK [Chinese proficiency test] in
National Minorities Schools to standardize the test for non-Chinese speakers, and
in 1997 the Education Commission issued another official document on trial
implementation of the HSK in national minority schools (cf. Bilik, this volume).
This trend has been met with a series of protests from a variety of sources,
including language groups that are tied to ethnic and religious minority commu-
nities on China’s periphery and urban, middle-class Han in some of China’s most
developed cities. In July 2010 a political advisory body in Guangzhou sparked
46 He Baogang
a backlash when it suggested greater use of Putonghua instead of Cantonese in

the lead-up to the Asian Games. Protests on August 1, 2010, in Hong Kong and
Guangzhou attracted more than one thousand participants, who angrily chanted
slogans opposing any attempts to dilute the local use of Cantonese (Hui 2010).
In October of the same year, more than one thousand Tibetans in Qinghai pro-
tested against reports that the government was planning to put into place policies
that would limit the use of the Tibetan language in schools by teaching all sub-
jects except for English and Tibetan in Putonghua.3 The European Parliament
has supported Tibetans in defending the status of their language. It adopted a
resolution in support of a language policy in which all subjects can be taught
in the Tibetan language and condemned the Chinese government for its use of
Putonghua as the main medium of instruction in Tibet.4 Uyghur resistance to
monolingual education has been particularly strong.5
Often scholars and commentators look at European linguistic practices and
theory for inspiration and as a benchmark when evaluating Chinese linguistic
policy. Within Europe, states have developed policies to promote teaching in the
mother tongue with the aim of increasing student attendance and classroom par-
ticipation. In this framework, concerns about language justice override concerns
about the economic utility of the language of classroom instruction; education in
one’s mother tongue is seen as a human right. In this view, linguistic diversity is
similar to biodiversity—some languages are endangered and require protection
if they are not to become extinct. The preservation of linguistic diversity is seen
as an indicator of social justice (Skutnabb-Kangas et al. 2009; Mohanty 2009;
Perez 2009). In Europe, generally speaking, the issue of linguistic preservation
is not primarily tied to claims for political independence, although perhaps the
Basque case is an exception.
In contrast, China’s language practices and policies have been shaped by
the dominance of the Han script (Hanzi 漢字) and the state’s desire to create
and maintain Great Unity (da yitong 大一同) built on linguistic imperialism.
In China, the principle of Great Unity is the first priority and language policy
follows this principle. Linguistic justice is a secondary consideration when com-
pared to the goal of national unity and development. For example, Ma Rong, a
professor at Peking University, remarked that the death of a minority language
might be a good thing, as it contributes to social stability.6
The Power of Chinese Linguistic Imperialism and Its Challenge 47
In this chapter, I employ a historical approach with a focus on the Chinese-

based experience. A long-term historical perspective makes it possible to trace
the history of the Chinese linguistic world and policy, provides a key to under-
standing current educational and linguistic policy, and offers us insight into the
probable future direction of linguistic trends. It should be acknowledged that
this historical approach is more concerned with political history than linguistic
history. This is an empirically oriented approach that is sensitive to China’s own
experiences. It might be regarded as naïve to criticize China’s language policy
from a European plural language perspective as the EU and China face different
political challenges and are in different stages of development.
While I concur with the European moral position on linguistic issues (He
2010), I argue that Chinese linguistic education practice must be understood in
its own right. The chapter employs the Chinese concept of gaitu guiliu (改土歸
流, replacing native chieftains with state officials) to develop a Chinese experi-
ence-based understanding (He 2004). The gaitu guiliu policy involved abolishing
tusi (土司, native chieftains) in many frontier regions with large ethnic minor-
ity populations in favor of a system of limited-tenure official titles and the same
Confucian culture and the written system of Hanzi. It has been the dominant
policy and an administrative force that has consolidated Chinese linguistic impe-
rialism. Gaitu guiliu converted the law and cultural customs of any minority into
a unitary system of administrative control. In particular, the policy encouraged
the elite and even ordinary people of ethnic communities to study Chinese and
sit for the imperial examination, so that they could become Chinese officials.
In the process of gaitu guiliu, minority languages were gradually eroded and the
Chinese Han language slowly became dominant. Today, the policy of dislocated
boarding schools, as discussed by Chen Yangbin in this volume, seems reminis-
cent of Chinese Ming and Qing historical practice.
The gaitu guiliu policy embodies a linguistic imperialism that has existed
throughout a long period of Chinese history. The Naxi people (Naxizu 納西族)
are a useful example. From the Tang and Song until the Ming dynasty, tusi in
Lijiang promoted the transmission of the culture to China’s central plains. This
was especially the case at the upper levels of society where the study of Han script
shaped the bilingual social organization of the traditional ruling class. After the
Qing’s gaitu guiliu policy, the establishment of official and private Han script
48 He Baogang
education spread among the people. After the founding of the Chinese Republic,
the number of students in Han script schools skyrocketed and Han written and
spoken language reached an even greater level of transmission and use. From the
Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties until the 1930s, Lijiang has also had a continual
inflow of Han people, and the development of its old city has created a society
where the Naxi language is the main language and Chinese is a complementary
language. Currently both the Naxi and Han languages are used concurrently (Gai
and Gao 2008).
A cautious note on spatial distinction is needed. Historically, gaitu guiliu
was more dominant and ultimately successful in the south of China where one
encountered tusi chieftains and often there was no strong or pre-existing written
language.7 In the northern region, the Qing, for example, maintained the jimi
system (羈縻, control and harness) and/or the autonomy system. The Qing
used the Tibetan language to rule over Tibet, the Uyghur language to rule in
Xinjiang, and Mongolian in Mongol areas. In contemporary China, however,
a new version of gaitu guiliu is being expanded to Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and
Xinjiang, with Hanzi playing a key role in transforming these northern frontier
regions.
I borrow the term “linguistic imperialism” from Robert Phillipson (2003,
2009) and employ it to describe a hierarchic linguistic structure where the domi-
nance of the Han written language has been unchallenged and other minority
languages are secondary. According to Phillipson, linguistic imperialism is a
form of linguicism, a favoring of one language over others. It often entails hierar-
chic order and unequal rights for speakers of different languages. I use the term
linguistic imperialism as an empirical and analytical tool to depict a historical
pattern, that is, how the imperial status of Hanzi was formed and developed, and
then consolidated.
The chapter has three sections. The first section provides an overview of the
Chinese history of linguistic imperialism. This is followed, in Section 2, by an
explanation of the domination and historical force of Chinese linguistic imperi-
alism and the reasons why this linguistic imperialism continues in contemporary
China. These two sections examine the historical processes by which Chinese
linguistic imperialism was originated, formed, and consolidated. Section 3 dis-
cusses the prospects for China’s multilingual education and presents some nor-
mative concerns with linguistic imperialism.
History of Linguistic Imperialism
Qin and Han Dynasties
The unification of the Chinese written language taking the form of xiaozhuan
(小篆, small seal script) can be traced back to China’s unification under the Qin
empire in 221 BC. The varieties of Han script that had developed in the differ-
ent warring states were standardized by the Qin government so as to facilitate
communication between the center and periphery, while the continued use of
nonstandard scripts was banned (Zhou and Ross 2004: 2).
Under the rule of the Wudi emperor (漢武帝) during the Han dynasty,
xiaozhuan was replaced by lishu (隸書, clerical script), which was easily written
and used widely by both the government and minjian (non-government
domain). The Wudi emperor also elevated Confucianism to the status of exclu-
sive official doctrine while abandoning all other doctrines for the first time in
Chinese history. Paper was invented and produced during the Eastern Han
dynasty, which helped to spread the Chinese language and culture to local elites
and ordinary people on a large scale.
Xi Xia Dynasty and Jin Dynasty
The imperial status of Chinese Hanzi was challenged by foreign conquerors and
their new imperial rules. The Xi Xia dynasty (西夏 Western Xia, 1038–1227)
imitated Hanzi and created its own written script, which was both an official and
private language. While Hanzi was still used, it was limited to the communica-
tion between the Xi Xia and Song dynasties. The Xi Xia also imposed its language
upon minority peoples (Cai et al. 1979).
After the Nüzhen (女真) established the Jin dynasty (金, 1119–38) the need
to create a native ethnic script was more and more pressing. Under the influence
of the neighboring Han and Khitan scripts, the Jurchen (Nüzhen) script was
born. The Jurchen borrowed some forms of Han and Khitan script and imitated
their methods, completing the creation of the basic script and vocabulary in a
short period of time. In the first year of the Tianjuan (天眷) period of the Xizong
emperor (熙宗) (1138) a Nüzhen small script was created. In 1145, the fifth
50 He Baogang
year of the Huangtong (皇统) period of the Xizong emperor, imperial orders
began to be recorded using the small script, which explains how the general use
of the Nüzhen small script began among society at this time ( Jin 2009). The Jin
used the script in official documents, excluding Hanzi (Kane 1989; Franke and
Twitchett 1994). Eventually, following the evaporation of Jin political power, the
influence of Nüzhen script began to fade away, until it eventually passed out of
human knowledge ( Jin 2009). By the end of the Ming period, Nüzhen script was
disappearing and Jurchen tribes began to use Mongolian script (Bao 2003).
Yuan Dynasty
The imperial status of Chinese Hanzi was at a critical historical juncture under
the Yuan. Kublai Khan (忽必烈, 1215–94) raised the importance of language
and written script to the highest level, giving them a place in his unified strat-
egy for political power and domination. Kublai Khan faced a number of language
choices. The first one was to use the Uyghur Mongolian script that had been used
since Genghis Khan’s time and would therefore only require the standardizing
and expanding of its use. This option would address the needs and tendencies
toward cultural inertia among the nobles and would involve the least effort and
trouble. The second option was to use or borrow Han script, or alternatively
the Khitan (Liao) script, or Nüzhen script, which at the time had a widespread
social and cultural foundation. But Kublai Khan chose a third way—create a new
script. He wanted to create and use a transcendent new script to support the work-
ings of a new dynasty, symbolizing the beginning of a new period. To be the ruler
of an empire of different ethnic groups using many different kinds of languages,
Kublai Khan hoped to have a kind of script that could record all of these different
languages. Kublai Khan hoped to use his newly fixed-upon script to help unite
his domain and ensure total rule. He hoped that the new script would triumph
over that era’s other written languages ( J. Zhang 2008).
Kublai Khan appointed a Tibetan scholar Basiba (Phags-pa 八思巴, 1235–
80) to draw up a new kind of script that could supersede all kinds of spoken
languages and be used throughout the empire. Basiba took a kind of Tibetan
script to act as the foundation for the alphabetic writing and created Basiba script
(Phags-pa script).
Considering the reality of the social and cultural conditions he was facing,
Kublai Khan first developed a “bilingual script” system in government docu-
ments; that is, the newly created Basiba script was the dominant language but the
languages of other states or ethnicities were also used alongside it. Later he used
Basiba script widely on stele inscriptions, public notices, and all kinds of plaques
and signs dealing with political, religious, and social affairs ( J. Zhang 2008).
In 1271, Kublai Khan proclaimed Basiba script to be the new Mongolian
script, and issued a warning that from then on the old Mongol script should not
be used and should be replaced by the new script. From then on imperial edicts
were in Basiba script, and Basiba script became the only legal national script.
Kublai Khan established mechanisms to educate using Basiba script such as
national script study in the capital and Mongolian script study in the regions, and
made Basiba script the language of instruction for all levels of schooling. He also
appointed special officials who were responsible for promoting the new script,
selecting talented people who were proficient in the new script, and used the new
script to translate the Han script classics. In order to encourage people to study
and master the language he even exempted students of the new language from
having to provide bonded labor and offered them official positions ( J. Zhang
2008).
During the Yuan period, a small group of Han Chinese, most from northern
China, had learnt and mastered the new language and had adopted Mongolian
names and cultures. In contrast, the majority of Han people in southern China
still used Hanzi and successfully resisted the new language (Li 2009). Despite
the great efforts made by Kublai Khan, the Chinese intellectual elite and some
sections of the Mongolian people, particularly the more independent Khan
states, resisted the use of Basiba script. Basiba script was finally abandoned with
the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty. The Mongolian script returned to the tradi-
tional Uyghur system, and developed into a stable symbolic form of Mongolian
identity. Mongolian spoken language also developed in different places forming
different dialects ( J. Zhang 2008).
Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty restored Hanzi as the official language. It also promoted
it in minority areas. One example is the Buyi minority (布依族) in Guizhou
52 He Baogang
Province. Previous dynasties before the Yuan adopted a jimi policy. The Ming
established the system of provinces in 1481 and ordered every tusi official to
send their eldest son into the Imperial College. The children of Buyi tusi who
entered the Imperial College had not only their lodgings supplied by the state
but even their clothing, hats, shoes, and socks. In contrast, during the mid-late
Qing period the law required all children of tusi to be sent for Confucian instruc-
tion at all levels, and if they did not successfully complete their Confucian studies
they were not able to serve as tusi. In the early Ming the law stated that the recipi-
ents of special policies in the Guizhou ethnic areas did not need to pass tests and
could directly enter the Imperial College to study. Community schools (shexue
社學) were also established in all Buyi areas. In 1475 in all of Guizhou there
were thirty places of Confucian study, among them more than ten that were in
Buyi areas. In 1505 the Guiyang region had twenty-four community schools
with seven hundred students. The funds for building schools were provided by
the central government (Zhao 2008).
Qing Dynasty
In 1599, Nurhaci (努爾哈赤) ordered the creation of a Manchu language based

on Mongolian script ( Jin 2009). The codifying of Manchurian script promoted
the work of translating the Han script classics, sped up the Sinification of the late
Jin rulers, and created the conditions for the establishment of the Qing dynasty
and its move into the Central Plains (Bao 2003). While the Manchu rulers
insisted on using the Manchu language as the official language, they had learnt
a lesson from the failure of the Yuan dynasty’s new language. They adopted a
policy of ruling subjects in their native language (tongwen zhi zhi 同文之治)
and used Hanzi in the administration of the sedentary territories of the Ming.
Through this policy the Qing dynasty was able to provide a way for Han sub-
jects to accept its rule. As new dynasties overthrew old ones, their legitimacy
depended on the continuing use of Han Chinese cultural practices, particularly
Hanzi and Confucian rituals. The Kangxi (康熙) emperor set up schools for
Manchu elite to study both Hanzi and Manchu language, and ordered Chinese
scholars to compile the Kangxi Dictionary (Kangxi zidian 康熙字典) as well as
the Manchurian Dictionary. The Yongzheng (雍正) emperor required Chinese
officials from Fujian and Guangdong Provinces to speak the official language and
set up schools there to teach the officials how to speak it. In 1872, the Tongzhi
(同治) emperor demanded all official documents submitted to the court be
written in Hanzi. Around 1845, the spoken language used formally in Beijing
became the national official spoken language; this was the origin of today’s
Putonghua (Zhang 1998).
It is remarkable that the Manchu language has slowly faded away and that
many Manchu elites and common people have converted to learning Hanzi
over a period of three hundred years (from Nurhaci’s creation of a Manchurian
language in 1599 to about 1899). This voluntary linguistic conversion was due
to the following factors. Manchu rulers advocated the learning of Hanzi, and
several emperors themselves mastered Chinese language and literature at a high
level. The examination system sped up the process of Sinification. The Manchu
shifted from fishing and hunting to an agricultural economy; in this process they
gave up many terms used specifically for hunting, and wrote Chinese poems
and novels that described their new way of life (the best example is Cao Xueqin
and his famous book Dream of the Red Chamber). A significant number of Han
Chinese flooded into the traditional Manchu territory due to natural disasters
in 1792 (Zhang 1995), outnumbering the Manchu people there, and so slowly
the Chinese language replaced the Manchu language. Mixed marriages also led
to the adoption of the Chinese language and the abandonment of the Manchu
language (D. Zhang 2002; Dai 2007; Feng 2010; L. Zhang 2008).
While Chinese language slowly became the dominant language, the Qing
continued to employ other languages, cultural traditions, and forms of govern-
ance in their rule over the frontier, as demonstrated by the so-called New Qing
historians such as Elliott, Crossley, Purdue, and Millward (Rawski 1996). The
New Qing historians, however, have led us to overlook the power and hegemony
of the Chinese language. We need to revisit and rebalance this debate (Ho 1998).
The Chinese language finally absorbed the Manchu language; the newly created
Manchu language—like its predecessor the Basiba script—lost the battle with a
Han script. Moreover, the Qing continued and strengthened Chinese linguistic
imperialism through its education policy in minority areas.
Inheriting the Ming dynasty education policy, the scale and depth of policy
during the Qing dynasty underwent comprehensive development. The Qing
54 He Baogang
established free community schools for ethnic minorities all over Guizhou
Province. After the Yongzheng emperor’s gaitu guiliu policy, official schools were
established there. Private schools also prospered because they suited the special
characteristics of the Buyi people’s mountain areas. The development of educa-
tion promoted the imperial examinations among ethnic minorities. In the years
of the Qing dynasty, Guizhou had more than five thousand examination candi-
dates and more than six hundred who held the jinshi (進士) degree. There was an
increased study quota and selection quota for Guizhou minorities, in particular,
there was a special category for the Miao people (miao ke 苗科) (Zhao 2008).
The Qing dynasty also promoted and implemented the gaitu guiliu policy in
Hunan and Sichuan Provinces. The majority of Tujia people (Tujiazu 土家族)
in western Hunan Province could not converse in the Han language before gaitu
guiliu. They spoke the Tujia language as the main tool for social interaction, and
they did not have their own written script. After gaitu guiliu large numbers of Han
moved into areas occupied by Tujia people and the Tujia language was subject
to the influence of Han language. When Han-language schools were widely
established and the numbers of Tujia entering these schools gradually increased,
the use of Han script in the Tujia area of western Hunan Province continually
expanded and the Tujia language underwent great changes in pronunciation and
vocabulary.8
The development of Confucian schools and education promoted the trans-
mission of Han spoken language and script among the Ba people (Baren 巴人)
in the eastern part of present-day Sichuan and Chongqing. This was the most
externally obvious characteristic of the Confucianization of the upper classes in
society. When Ba society received Chinese Confucian schools and education,
Han language and script took over, using Confucian culture as a carrier. Education
was not limited to the upper stratum of society, the children of common people
could receive educational opportunities, and so Confucian thought and culture
began to completely permeate Ba society (Huang 2010).
The Republican Era
Surprisingly when Hanzi consolidated its imperial status in the late Qing period,
it suffered a series of crises in the early modern period. Initially, Korea, Japan,
and Vietnam developed their national language scripts. Then in the early period
of the May Fourth Movement, several radical Chinese scholars like Wu Zhihui
called for the abandoning of the Han script because it was regarded as backward,
difficult to learn, and unsuitable for science. In the 1930s, a romanization (pinyin
拼音) movement emerged (Wang 2004). Nevertheless, the national oral lan-
guage (guoyin 國音) movement and vernacular writing (baihuawen 白話文)
movement strengthened Chinese linguistic imperialism (Wang 2004).
In the process of modern nation building on China’s periphery, Vietnam
and Korea moved away from using Han script and developed their own written
languages. This was similar to the process that occurred in Europe, where dif-
ferent countries developed written forms for their own national languages.
Nevertheless, the vernacular languages of the non-Han frontier regions and
various Chinese local dialects of the Republic and PRC have failed to develop
into modern written languages; Chinese Hanzi has instead remained domi-
nant. Today we are witnessing local dialects continuing to decline. The Chinese
modern linguistic transformation moved in a cosmopolitan (or imperial), rather
than local, direction.
The PRC Era
When the PRC was formed, eleven minority groups already had their own
writing systems, and the government began to assist other minority groups, such
as the Tujia minority, to develop their own scripts. Ten nationalities that never
had a writing system have, under government encouragement, developed pho-
netic alphabets.9 In these early years, minority policies were more influenced by
the Soviet experience and ideology than the traditional Chinese imperial poli-
cies. Since the early days of the PRC, the Communist Party of China (CPC)
demonstrated an intention to enhance language diversity and multilingualism in
China. Officials in ethnic autonomous regions are encouraged to speak multi-
ple languages, including both Putonghua (普通話, literally “common speech,”
but also known as Mandarin) and local languages (Zhou 2004). The National
People’s Congress uses seven different languages in its work, and five different
scripts appear on Chinese bank notes. Among the Han Chinese majority there is
also great linguistic diversity, with a number of spoken Chinese language groups
having tens of millions of speakers, such as the Wu, Yue, and Min language
groups.
56 He Baogang
In the 1960s, China consolidated the domination of Hanzi and adopted assimi-
lation policies to eliminate the political unrest posed by Tibetans in the wake of the
Dalai Lama’s resistance to democratic reform and his escape to India. The CPC’s
policy towards Tibetan culture and language can be seen as a modern version of
gaitu guiliu in the sense that in terminating the Dalai Lama’s rule in Tibet, Beijing
established a direct administrative system, appointed the Party Secretary of the
Tibet Autonomous Region, and implemented and promoted national educa-
tional and cultural policies there. This practice, however, was mixed with the
teaching of Marxism and socialism, which included political and legal commit-
ments to multiculturalism and the protection of ethnic diversity and minority
rights. Consequently, there is a tension between the traditional gaitu guiliu policy
and the modern socialist policy toward minorities.
China has also developed and promoted a unified and simplified Hanzi system
throughout China.10 This process involved many more considerations than just
relations between minorities and the center, such as improving education levels
and simplifying the characters to make it easier for everyone (not just minori-
ties) to learn. Of course, the process of creating a simplified Hanzi system created
a cultural divide between those areas that were under CPC political control and
Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan where the traditional complex characters are
still used.
In the 1990s, the Chinese state had to deal with the challenges that sprang
from ethnonationalism and calls for democratization on China’s periphery. In
response the state reinforced the long historical tradition of the unification of
language as the foundation of Great Unity. In contemporary China, in Tibet and
Xinjiang it is possible to use local languages in primary and secondary schools,
but at universities most of the instruction is in Putonghua. The languages of
ethnic minorities have been downplayed as an instruction language for higher
education, and languages have often survived through customary use but lacked
the political autonomy that comes from possessing inviolable rights.
The Determinants of the Continuation of Linguistic Imperialism
Throughout China’s process of dynastic change over thousands of years, Hanzi

has continued in its role as the written form used by the elites across East Asia.
It spread across the region, reaching Japan in the fifth century. The Han script
constituted the linguistic foundation of East Asian civilization, including China,
Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. This is in contrast with India, where political dynas-
ties were shorter-lived and more geographically fragmented, and where there
was a diverse range of writing systems. In Europe, Latin played a role in unify-
ing the educated elite across the continent. It was tied to the role of the church
and scientific communities, who used Latin for their published works for a
period during the Enlightenment before they shifted to using national languages.
In China, the written script remained linked to secular authority, whereas the
Tibetan and Arabic scripts used in peripheral areas in China were linked to reli-
gious authorities and religious texts. The Han script was consolidated through
a series of long-lived empires and still enjoys imperial status today. Five factors
account for the continuation of Chinese linguistic imperialism in contemporary
China.
First, Han script is a kind of soft power. This soft power is a public good that
different kinds of people can share and use to communicate with each other. It
is a “container” for cultural and material achievements. It is a cultural system
through which political administration is able to exercise power. Jenner remarks:
“Chinese high culture generally, and the Chinese written language in particular,
have had an amazing power to standardize or to play down quirkiness, unortho-
doxy and difference” ( Jenner 1992). This linguistic dimension of soft power
differs from a strategic conceptualization of soft power developed by Nye, who
sees soft power as an attractive strategy to get others to do what you want, and
the ability to co-opt people and manipulate the agenda of political choice (Nye
2004).
Of course, the imperial status of Hanzi has depended on political power and
still does so today. Historically Qin and Han emperors endorsed and supported
Hanzi, and Ming and Qing emperors promoted the spread of Hanzi. However,
Hanzi as a kind of soft power is sometimes much more powerful than hard
political or military power. Foreign dynasties like the Qing conquered China in
political and military terms, but failed to resist the linguistic power of Hanzi and
had to accept its continued use as a core official language. There was even a very
slow and gradual process of voluntary conversion to Han script. Several factors
account for the voluntary conversion to Han script by foreign rulers. First,
58 He Baogang
instrumentally they had to use it to rule the vast land and large population who
had used Hanzi for centuries. Second, generations of Chinese and many other
peoples have improved the Hanzi language system over at least three millennia.
It is a civilizational product that has constantly adapted and changed its methods
of expressing and distinguishing meanings efficiently, using written forms and
characters. In short, Hanzi has a number of comparative advantages over minor-
ity languages in China, some of which do not have a writing system. Third, path
dependence is also a factor. It is often easier to adapt the Chinese language rather
than create a new language from scratch. A politically constructed language often
has a short life, for example, the language of Basiba. A language can be created by
a strong military and political power, but often is unsustainable in the long term.
The failure of the Basiba language may have contributed to the short political life
of the Yuan dynasty, while the adoption of Hanzi may have contributed to the
longevity of the Qing dynasty.
The second important factor is the choice of modern polity structures, which has
impacted on the political, cultural and linguistic life of minorities. Take the con-
trasting histories of India and China as an example. In India, there has never been a
strong empire that lasted for more than a hundred years. Indian history is character-
ized by fragmentation into a number of rival kingdoms, and numerous linguistic
worlds; even within the two major linguistic blocs, Dravidian and Aryan, there are
many geographic and linguistic sub-groups (Amritavalli and Jayaseelan 2007). The
short-lived empires in precolonial India did not have time to develop assimila-
tion policies; and India’s history of the caste system reinforced group politics and
tribal languages. A federal form of polity was chosen for the fledgling nation-state,
at least in part because of this historical pattern. What has evolved is a relatively suc-
cessful multinational federalism under which the rights, cultures, and languages of
India’s minorities flourish for the most part.
In China, on the other hand, since the Qin dynasty (221 BC), a number of
powerful empires, some lasting several hundred years, were established. China has
continued the unitary tradition with a strong power at the center controlling frag-
mental minorities at the periphery. In the long history of Chinese empires, there
have been uninterrupted leadership periods of at least three decades, which has
allowed for greater assimilation and intermingling. This historical difference
explains the difference in linguistic policy. India has a Linguistic Commissioner,
and India has often redrawn boundaries along linguistic and cultural lines. China
has had a unified written language for a thousand years; it remains a unitary
system. The provincial boundaries are never defined by language, although the
boundaries of major ethnic groups, like Tibetans, are related to, but not defined
by, language. In this context, Beijing does not recognize the internal border,
which the Dalai Lama’s Greater Tibet implies.
The third factor is the state’s continuing use of a unified language to promote
national political unity. Throughout Chinese history, there has been an overarch-
ing concern for the greater union, and the unified language policy has been a
major binding force. A unified language was the foundation of the Chinese politi-
cal concept of Great Unity. Unification of the written language was seen to be an
important factor in unifying the country politically. The linguistic imperialism of
Hanzi has interlocked with bureaucratic structures and institutions (such as the
post-station system, civil service exam, and history writing) across the dynasties
in China. Chinese hold the view that it was linguistic unity that prevented China
from breaking apart in modern times.
Fourth is the force of unified Chinese markets. Most of the scholarship on lin-
guistic questions has focused on the role of politics and culture rather than the
economy. In the pre-modern market, Skinner notes that the boundaries between
Chinese dialects could usually be found to follow the boundaries between
markets: “. . . when my informants in Szechwan [Sichuan] used to discourse
on the peculiarities of speech characteristic of the different markets, that the
minimal unit of significance to the dialect geographer of China is precisely the
standard marketing area” (Skinner 1964: 44).11
In modern markets, however, economic development has promoted a common
market and economic integration. In this process, even ethnic cultures have them-
selves become commercialized products, which has degraded their cultural signifi-
cance. As more national markets develop within China, a trend towards viewing
ability in Putonghua as necessary for economic prosperity can be seen in many
places, including Shanghai, where the desire to sell products to outsiders has led
to increasing use of Putonghua, and Yunnan, where similar national markets in
areas including tourism have developed.
More parents in China are now encouraging their children to speak Putonghua
at home, rather than their local dialect, because of the educational and career
60 He Baogang
opportunities it is seen to provide. Internal migration has also fuelled the spread
of Putonghua, with the development of internal transport networks encouraging
interaction between people who previously would have been unlikely to leave
their local area. Interestingly, the force of the market is sometimes much more
influential than administrative power in promoting a unified language. In some
minority-dominated enterprises, some Han Chinese must be employed to deal
with technology and market issues despite the owners’ preference towards employ-
ing people of their own ethnicity.
It can be hypothesized that under market mechanisms ordinary minority people
are generally the first to study the dominant language voluntarily and the first to
be assimilated. In contrast, under traditional administrative mechanisms in the
practice of gaitu guiliu (that is, the state setting up schools and offering incentives
for minorities to study the dominated language), local elites have been the first to
study the dominant language and become assimilated. Today, it seems that ordi-
nary people from minority areas are more interested in studying Chinese and/
or English than their political elites who might be resistant to it, or argue for the
protection of minority languages. For example, some Uyghur elites have argued
against bilingual teaching. In this context, Ma Rong has argued that it is best to let
the market decide what language is best. For him the spread of Putonghua leads
to greater equality of opportunity for ethnic minorities within China.12 Ordinary
minority people might benefit from the new opportunities provided by the
spread of Chinese linguistic imperialism, while some elites might lose out. The
Chinese government often points out that the Dalai Lama’s advocacy for Tibetan
culture is a disguised attempt at maintaining a feudal power base that disadvan-
tages ordinary Tibetans.
The fifth factor involves the growing global status of the Chinese language and
China’s imitation of the imperialism of English. With the rise of China, the Chinese
government has taken steps to strengthen the international position of the
Chinese language, such as by establishing more than six hundred Confucius
Institutes around the world and pushing for international recognition of the use
of Hanzi in Internet domain names. China is pushing the international expan-
sion of Putonghua and the kind of Hanzi used on the Mainland, but not other
Han dialects or non-Han spoken languages or scripts.
Chinese language policy exists in between two linguistic worlds: the global
dominance of the English language and the European world of language plurality.
In many international organizations the parallel use of languages is the norm—

the EU has twenty-three official languages (Phillipson 2003; Extra and Gorter
2008), the African Union operates using four ex-colonial languages, but ASEAN
has adopted English as its working language (Kirkpatrick 2010).
While China certainly will continue to maintain its linguistic plurality and diver-
sity as a political necessity, it is also following the example of English linguistic
imperialism, which seems to provide the Chinese state with normatively legitimate
justification. English is being spread through market forces and appeals to a mass
market around the world (by contrast, Latin was promoted by the church and
remained the property of elites). English is not only a tool for conducting inter-
national business; it is also in demand around the world and has become a com-
modity in its own right (Kachru and Nelson 2007; Murata and Jenkins 2009;
Tam 2009; Vaish 2010; Pingali 2009; Seargeant 2009; Setter 2010; Stanlaw
2004; Bautista and Bolton 2002; Detering 2008; Pakir et al. 2010). Being able to
speak English is a form of cultural capital and a path to a better economic future
in many countries, and so the teaching of English has become a valuable export
commodity for countries such as Australia, where schools and universities take
on large numbers of international students keen to improve their English skills.
The Chinese state has also developed and promoted the linguistic capital of
Putonghua so that individuals will view learning the language as an investment
in their economic future.
As China’s international power rises, the Chinese language could be consid-
ered a potential rival to the global use of English. The history of Chinese linguis-
tic imperialism goes back at least three millennia, which is much longer than
that of English linguistic imperialism, which has only been around for several
centuries. There must be some tension between English and Chinese linguis-
tic imperialism, and the implications of this rivalry need to be studied further.
Currently China is part of a globalized English world, and the Chinese language
is not currently in a position to challenge the global dominance of English. Nor
does the Chinese state have any desire to establish a closed linguistic world
excluding English; rather it aims to build an open linguistic world (Xu 2010; Liu
2008). Interestingly, many Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Mongols in China are learn-
ing English but through the intermediary language of Putonghua and Hanzi.13
62 He Baogang
Prospects: China’s Linguistic World over the Coming Century
While I do not adopt historical determinism, the history of Chinese linguistic

imperialism tells us that the force of Hanzi is greater than the force resisting it.
The force of Hanzi is cultural soft power, and sometimes and in some areas it is
much more powerful than that of the CPC. Much more intense violence took
place in response to the gaitu guiliu policy under the Yongzheng emperor; there
was even a revolt (Feng 1992). Today’s protests mentioned earlier in this chapter
are much smaller in terms of scale and much less intense in terms of the level of
violence. It is expected that in the future these protests will continue alongside
the implementation of gaitu guiliu.
The long-term impact of gaitu guiliu should not be underestimated. Behind
China’s current linguistic policy towards Tibet is the belief that because in the past
gaitu guiliu was relatively successful in Yunnan and Guizhou, in the long term it
may have reasonable success in today’s Tibet in the sense that Putonghua and
Hanzi will be accepted as the dominant languages in the Tibetan region but, that,
the Tibetan language and Buddhism will continue to remain an integral part of
Tibetan life. Tibetan leaders in exile including Samdhong Rinpoche, the former
Tibetan Kalon Tripa (prime minister), seem to ignore this possibility.
While China remains a multilingual society, and multilinguistic and bilingual
practice is likely to continue, there will be different patterns of bilingual educa-
tion and practices that are likely to follow previous historical patterns. Often
this process has begun with the minority language dominant over the Chinese
language. Then, in the next stage, both Chinese language and minority language
become equally important. Then slowly this evolves into the next phase in which
the Chinese language becomes dominant while the minority language becomes
secondary. Finally, bilingual practice disappears and the Chinese language
becomes the only written and spoken language. This is the historical pattern of
Chinese linguistic imperialism. It is likely that this history will repeat itself in
many areas of China in the near future.
By the end of 2110, around one hundred years from now, Tibetan Buddhism
and language will certainly remain but are likely to play a much less important
role than they do today. Both Tibetan and Uyghur languages may be pushed into
the private sphere. It is likely that the spread of Hanzi and Putonghua will be most
successful in the areas where the Tibetan Autonomous Region borders neigh-
boring provinces rather than in remote and isolated Tibetan areas. Following
the regional differentiated policies of the late Qing, the Chinese state is likely
to develop a new differentiated regional policy in terms of spreading Hanzi and
Putonghua. Chinese linguistic imperialism is likely to be more successful in
Tibetan areas than Xinjiang. This is because the Chinese and Tibetans belong to
the same larger ethnic group that shares certain cultural characteristics such as
the Buddhist tradition and history. Uyghurs are much more ethnically distinct
from the Han Chinese and use a language that is part of a Turkic language group
that is used in a number of different countries outside China.
Finally, I will break from the previous analysis to address some normative
issues inherent in the empirical discussion of linguistic imperialism. First, to
describe the historical formation and consolidation of Chinese linguistic imperi-
alism is not to internalize and naturalize it as “normal.” I have no intention of glo-
rifying the dominant language and rationalizing the linguistic hierarchy. On the
contrary, I am aware of the criticism and concern from minorities and understand
their uncomfortable feelings towards Chinese linguistic imperialism. This can be
found in the popular culture of minorities. For example, they often accuse current
bilingual teaching of being fake; laugh at those they label as “minkaohan” (members
of ethnic minorities who finish their schooling in Hanzi/Putonghua); despise those
who speak good Putonghua for not maintaining their cultural tradition; and regard
their own language as best. To understand their feelings is to respect their cultural
integrity. Perhaps we should make a policy recommendation that the Chinese state
needs to promote minority language teaching to Han Chinese as a counter to Han
language dominance and encourage Han students to learn minority languages
as an appreciation for cultural and linguistic diversity. Perhaps the government
should make a legal requirement that all employees in the state administration
of autonomous regions (zizhiqu 自治區) speak, read, and write the language
of the autonomous region. This is an institutionalized way to build up an incen-
tive structure for Han to learn a minority language. Both majority and minorities
must realize the value of multiculturalism.
Second, we must have an accurate and proper understanding of Chinese lin-
guistic imperialism. It has been associated with bilingual or multilingual teach-
ing. While Hanzi remained the core language of the empire, a plurality of other
64 He Baogang
written forms persisted in peripheral areas such as Tibet. The Han script pro-
vided a standard written form that could be used for communication between
elites, but this was also accompanied by a plurality of Chinese spoken language
groups across the country. A benign emperor often tries to achieve a balance
between Chinese linguistic imperialism and multilingual practice and teach-
ing. It is recommended that the Chinese state continues this imperial practice
to craft policies that find a balance between the forces of economic development
and modernization that are driving the expansion of Putonghua and the desire
for the preservation of language plurality and cultural difference. In the modern
world, the Chinese state has to take seriously the dangers of an unjust way of
managing language diversity. Policies should be made according to the principle
of equal access to education and economic opportunity. The process of policy-
making should involve the participation, consultation, and deliberation of those
groups who are affected by linguistic policy.
Third, there is an emergent mixed regime where Confucianism, the socialist
culture of equality, and liberal multiculturalism interact and play competing roles
in constructing the modern discourse on linguistic policy. While they give rise
to internal tensions between unity and plurality, equality and hierarchy, as well as
between linguistic justice and administrative control, they also create new and open
spaces, dual identities, and hybridity. Developments in this direction are likely to
become the new norm. While Hanzi expands and prevails, it ought to leave space
for minority people to continue their own language practices. Nevertheless an
unspoken factor behind many cultural policies is the fear of ethnic separatism.
The puzzle for the government is how to promote minority culture and language
without promoting a separatist form of minority nationalism at the same time.
This is a delicate problem in that while assimilation might be more politically
convenient for the government than genuine multiculturalism, it is also a risky
strategy that plays into the hands of those who accuse the government of trying
to suppress minorities.
3
How Do You Say “China” in Mongolian?
Toward a Deeper Understanding of Multicultural Education
in China
Naran Bilik
Introduction: Minzu and Its Translated Practice
In this chapter, I employ the method of “nomenclatural archaeology,” which is

supported by the revised version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Lucy 1992;
Gumperz and Levinson 1996), to explore the etymological anxiety that under-
pins multiculturalism and multicultural education in the PRC, arguing that
behind mainstream educational thinking lurks a linguistic-cultural anxiety over
the much-delayed moment of congruity between the boundaries of the state, lan-
guage, and culture. This tension is not only evident in the polysemy of Chinese
terms like minzu (民族), Zhonghua minzu (中華民族), and so forth, but in the
way non-Han people refer to China where, in Mongolian, for example, China can
be Khitad (Han) or Dumdadu Ulus (central people/state), indexical to a history
of tensions, conflicts and compromises between the Han and non-Han peoples
over the past centuries.
Although the Chinese word minzu is vital for understanding and interpreting
China’s ethnonational configuration, past and present, there is no English equiv-
alent; it can be polysemously translated as “peoples,” “ethnic group,” “national-
ity,” and “minorities” depending on the context. The word minzu can also mean
“nation-state.” Han-cultural centralism, with its antiquity of authoritarianism,
embraced a brand of civil society but also an ideal model for the nation-state,
which asserts its linguistic-cultural border must be in agreement with its newly
drawn political border. The word minzu is so polysemous that it often carries con-
flicting meanings. First of all, in Chinese, China is one minzu (nation); second,
this minzu contains again fifty-six different minzu (previously nationalities, or,
66 Naran Bilik
recently, ethnic groups). While scholars in China differ over the English trans-
lation of minzu (Lin 1963; Wang 1983; Han and Li 1985; Zhou 1999; Wei et
al. 1999), I agree with Kymlicka (1995) and Bulag (2002) that a “multinational
state,” which involves “previously self-governing, territorially concentrated cul-
tures” being incorporated into “a large state” with resulting cultural diversity (to
which China is a fit), is different from a “polyethnic state,” in which case “cultural
diversity arises from individual and familial immigration.” Hence, in the former
case, the incorporated cultures are “national minorities,” for which I would rather
use the Chinese pinyin minzu to avoid complications due to different transla-
tions and interpretations. In addition, I will also analyze the ambiguity and
untranslatability of the Chinese notion of minzu when we find ourselves in the
semiotic universe of the Mongolian language. Such translingual ambiguity, if
not untangled adequately, will sometimes translate into violent practices against
members of different minzu with the help of a variety of political, economic, or
other catalysts.
With China growing ever stronger economically, there has been a surge of
inter-minzu discord and hostility in recent years and international attention has
been drawn towards horrific scenes of violence against members of different
minzu. In Lhasa, the capital of Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), ethnic vio-
lence broke out on March 14, 2008, and resulted in nineteen deaths and more
than six hundred wounded according to government sources (Zhongguo xinwen
wang 2008); in Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
(XUAR), ethnic violence again broke out on July 5, 2009, which resulted in 197
dead and 1,700 wounded (Xinhua 2009b); a few weeks prior in Shaoguan, a city
in Guangdong Province, fighting broke out between Han and Uyghur workers in
a Xuri Toy Factory, and two Uyghurs died and 120 Uyghur and Han employees
were hospitalized as a result (Nanfang wang 2009); and in Xinlingol, where on
May 11, 2011, a Mongolian herder, Mergen, was run over by a coal truck, the
driver was a Han. Mergen led a group of herders who blocked a convoy of coal
trucks from moving across grazing lands. This is one of the many incidents that
can be traced back, if diagonally, to historical conflicts between nomadic and sed-
entary ways of life. Multiple protests involving hundreds of herders and students
followed the incident and spread to other places including Hohhot, the capital of
the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR). Large numbers of riot police
How Do You Say “China” in Mongolian? 67
were dispatched to control the situation (Ramzy 2011). In sum, ethnic tensions
between Han and non-Han peoples are on the rise in Tibet, Xinjiang, and, to
some extent, Inner Mongolia, while such tensions are also having diverse influ-
ences on official and scholarly thinking and educational policies in these autono-
mous regions.
Two conflicting lines of thought have emerged over what has gone wrong
in the past: one asserts that the current minzu policies (educational policies
included) are too soft and that national minorities are given too much preferen-
tial treatment, and are thus simply “spoiled”; the other camp holds that national
minorities have been pushed too hard, into an unbearable situation, given the
impact of rapid social and economic transformation. The former position rep-
resents the view of the mainstream. Many Han scholars who are more or less
sympathetic to the anti-autonomy view argue that preferential policies heighten
minzu consciousness and facilitates separatism (Ma 2007b, 2012: 192–253; Sun
2011); some point out that the recognition of national minorities and the grant-
ing of autonomous status are among the biggest blunders that the Communist
Party of China (CPC) has ever committed.1 Interestingly, these commentators
are usually, with a few exceptions, not familiar with ethno-history and even less
likely to know any minority languages. Also, their argument centers on attack-
ing the minzu identification project (minzu shibie 民族識別, 1950–79) for rec-
ognizing the fifty-five minority minzu who might otherwise, according to these
critics, not think of themselves as minzu at all. These autonomy-nullifiers remain
silent when their opponents cite the cases of Mongols, Uyghurs, and Tibetans
who tried to create or maintain independent modern statehood before the iden-
tification project. Officials are more ambiguous about the present situation and
the future of autonomy in private conversations, although openly they would
stick to the clichés of national unity. In sharp contrast, most minority and some
Han scholars give their full support to regional ethnic autonomy and have com-
plained about its weakening in recent years.2
“National Questions”: Minority Language and Political Autonomy
The CPC has long followed a Soviet-Marxist approach to the so-called national
question (minzu wenti 民族問題), paying special attention to minority language
68 Naran Bilik
education and political autonomy. Lenin and Stalin readily embraced territorial
autonomy for nationalities in the Soviet Union. While encouraging “homogene-
ity in the national composition of the population,” they also permitted minor-
ity groups to differentiate along ethnic lines, and contributed to the creation of
“autonomous national districts.” Leninist strategy envisioned that at the early
stages of their development national minorities need “native languages, native
subjects and native teachers” to “polemicize with ‘their own’ bourgeoisie,”
and “banish the virus of nationalism from their proletarian disciples and their
own minds.”3 Lenin’s followers believed that the communists would eventually
abolish nationality and that “the working men have no country.” But until this
long-term goal could be accomplished, policy should follow the well-known
formula of “national in form, socialist in content.” Marxist ideology posits that
humans should be classified horizontally into socioeconomic classes, and that
this approach will eventually overcome the nationalist ideology that divides
humanity vertically into national/ethnic compartments (Connor 1984: 6).
However, in reality, when “communism and nationalism have been perceived as
at odds,” nationalism has tended to take priority (Connor 1984: 584). The com-
munist movement, both in the past and at present, has underestimated the power
of nationalism (Bilik 2009).
As a continuing effort at “national in form, socialist in content,” the CPC
tried to revive a sense of national unity through education, though Walker
Connor points out that this form-content formula turns out to be “national in
form, national in content.” In 1934, out of practical considerations,4 the Jiangxi
Chinese Soviet Republic recognized the right of self-determination of national
minorities, and their right to completely separate from China, and their right to
form an independent state for each minority group (see Article 14 of the 1934
CPC constitution, MUF 1991: 206–9). In 1935, the CPC promised independ-
ence to the Mongols and Chinese Muslims, calling upon them to organize their
own states (Connor 1984: 81). The Chinese Communist Party designed a series
of preferential policies to guarantee the national minorities the freedom of lan-
guage use and language development. And after the establishment of the PRC
in 1949, Education Minister Ma Xulun demanded that all recognized minzu,
including the Mongols, Koreans, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and others, use
their own languages and writing systems in education and that special funds
be set aside for developing national minority education (Han 1998: 103–104).
Several instruments were fundamental for substantiating the CPC’s ideology of
minority education, which included the training of minority political elite and
professional personnel, dissemination of the Marxist view of the nation and
nationalism, respect for local customs, use of minority languages by all govern-
ment institutions, and preferential treatment for minority students (Wu 2000:
4–9). Pro-minority policies were designed to serve the long-term strategy for
realizing the Chinese version of communism: nationalities, it was believed, would
eventually be replaced by class-defined human unity. In the meantime, however,
quotas were established for minorities to hold office in local governments, and
self-government by the national minority became standard.5 However, all these
endeavors were ultimately aimed at achieving the Chinese vision of the ultimate
assimilation of all minorities into the Han.
One vital component of this assimilationist process is what He Baogang (this
volume) terms “linguistic imperialism,” “a form of linguicism” first identified by
Phillipson, where one language is favored over others. Earlier, in a similar vein,
Dwyer describes linguistic nationalism in Xinjiang, where the Chinese language
has become dominant both in ideology and practice, overriding local minor-
ity languages such as Uyghur (Dwyer 2005). Since the founding of communist
China, translation institutions, such as the national minority translation bureau
and national minority language and writing work committees or offices, were
founded for national minorities. Two tasks were set for such translation organiza-
tions: publicizing Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought and translating
into minority languages classics by communist leaders, Party documents, laws
and regulations, and state policies.6 The documents are translated into the seven
main minority languages: Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazakh, Yi, Zhuang,
and Korean. Both the state Constitution and the Law of the People’s Republic of
China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language (2000) guarantee
the language rights of national minorities.
There have always been oppositional views, however. Affirmative action pro-
grams, for example, suffered setbacks during the Great Leap Forward. On April
27, 1957, the CPC Central Committee issued “Directives on the Movement
to Rectify Styles” (Guanyu zhengfeng yundong de zhishi 關於整風運動的
指示); on October 15, it also issued “On Main Criteria for Judging Rightists
70 Naran Bilik
among the National Minorities” (Guanyu jianbie shaoshuminzu zhong de youpai

fenzi de zhuyao biaozhun 關於鑒別少數民族中的右派分子的主要標
準).7 Beginning in October 1957, following the Central Committee directive
on “Rectifying Style, Opposing Rightism, and Socialist Education among the
National Minorities” (Guanyu zai shaoshuminzu diqu jinxing zhengfeng, fanyou he
shehuizhuyi jiaoyu de zhishi 關於在少數民族地區進行整風反右和社會主
義教育的指示), minority regions and areas saw the launching of an anti-local-
minority-rightist movement. In Inner Mongolia, 3,731 cadres, mainly of minor-
ity ethnicity, were condemned as rightists.8 They were demoted and humiliated,
either transferred to new posts or sent away to remote regions for re-education
through hard labor, or simply thrown into jail. One of my informants was labeled
a rightist for complaining of not being able to practice Mongolian customs.
He was severely criticized, demoted by two ranks, and penalized with a salary
reduction.
The Cultural Revolution (1966–76) wrought dreadful havoc on the national
minorities. Some mainstream ultra-leftists equated ethnic autonomy with sepa-
ratism. They challenged the fact that some national minorities were in charge of
majority affairs, asserting that minority languages were useless and lacked sci-
entific vocabularies. On the presumption that national minorities were liable to
collaborate with foreign enemies, the then Minister of Public Security, Xie Fuzhi,
made a statement that seemed to suggest that all Mongolian CPC members were
also secret members of the New Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party
(NIMPRP), and should therefore be “cleansed” (Tumen and Zhu 1995: 2). The
ultra-leftists, both in the central government and at local institutions, launched
a relentless class struggle against the national minorities. In Inner Mongolia, a
ruthless campaign was waged between 1968 and 1969 to “unearth” members
of the so-called NIMPRP. The ultra-leftists insisted that the NIMPRP had
penetrated Inner Mongolia, and NIMPRP was the reincarnation of a shadowy
organization that had been active during the 1920s and 1940s. A massive purge
ensued. According to the official indictment brought against the Gang of Four at
their trial in December 1980, there were 346,000 persons wrongfully accused in
Inner Mongolia in connection with the fabricated case against the NIMPRP; of
these, 16,222 were persecuted to death (Tumen and Zhu 1991: 2; Altandelhei
1999: 78; Brown 2006: 3). Teeth were pulled out with pliers, spines were broken
from being struck with a heavy stick; “suspects” were forced to dance on fire
barefooted, and women were gang-raped (Altandelhei 1999: 78–109). The
authorities acknowledged later that this alleged insurrectionary Mongol nation-
alist organization was a complete fabrication. During the Cultural Revolution,
Inner Mongolian borders were redrawn to circumvent minorities’ ostensible
raison d’être. In 1969, the size of Inner Mongolia, the first autonomous region
created in 1947, was decreased by one-third due to the redrawing of its bound-
aries by the central government. During this process, “huge segments of terri-
tory were severed from both its eastern and western flanks and were assigned to
Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Gansu, and Ningxia.”9
Finally, in late 1978, the household contract responsibility system was intro-
duced for herding communities in Inner Mongolia. Livestock were sold to private
households and pasturelands were enclosed (NDCBW 1991: 301). This process
replaced Mongolian open horizons with regimented space, heterogeneous patch-
work with homogenized fields, landscape diversity with resource concentration,
and the casual mix of grass and sand with clear boundaries—bringing social
disorientation and cultural disorder while disrupting “long-standing feedback
loops between residents and their production environment” (Williams 2002:
203). The landscape could no longer provide visual cues that once guided local
herders in their management of resources and decision-making information.
Since herding skills have become less relevant, herders are losing their grazing
strategies (Williams 2002: 203). The original landscape disappeared, endanger-
ing the traditional repertoire of sociocultural embodiment between Mongolian
herders and their landscape (Adams et al. 2001).
Back to Assimilationism: The Case for Homogeneity
The stance against preferential treatment for minorities is prevalent among

non-minority officials and researchers, especially in places like Xinjiang where
Uyghur and Han relations remain tense. They insist that it is high time for effec-
tive steps to strengthen linguistic and cultural assimilation policies by suspend-
ing preferential treatment to national minorities. Even bilingualism seems to be
intolerable.10 From the majority point of view, it might be the line of least resist-
ance for China to homogenize language and culture for the sake of stability and
72 Naran Bilik
efficiency, which will enable development at full speed and lead to prosperity.
Gellner, to whom many books and articles are dedicated (Hall and Jarvie 1996;
Hall 1998, 2010), might give his strategic consent, if reluctantly. He argued that
modern societies must have an official language and “high culture”: homogene-
ity is a functional imperative for the modern state, which “appears on the surface
in the form of nationalism” (cf. Taylor 1998: 193). Gellner’s intellectual posi-
tion is quite close to Marxist materialism though he has no sympathy for socialist
aspirations (Hann 1996: 61–62). One of the themes that appear in all his writ-
ings on nationalism centers on high culture-cum-education. In industrial socie-
ties, he writes:
The employability, dignity, security and self-respect of individuals, typi-
cally, and for the majority of men now hinges on their education; and the
limits of the culture within which they were educated are also the limits
of the world within which they can, morally and professionally, breathe. A
man’s education is by far his most precious investment, and in effect confers
his identity on him (Gellner 1983: 36).
The economy needs a homogenous culture; a homogeneous culture is supported

by a monolithic educational system; and a monolithic educational system is pro-
vided by the nation-state. They all need each other. The state controls the quality
of the educational machine and “the manufacture of viable and usable human
beings” (Gellner 1983: 38). In the industrial age only high cultures, which
resemble each other, will eventually survive (Gellner 1983: 117); as Gellner
notes (1983: 119) “two large, politically viable, independence-worthy cultures”
can hardly cohabit “under a single political roof.”
The mainstream Chinese thinking about education can be a counter-case for
Gellner when he attributes the functional cause of the emergence of “high cul-
tures” and modern education to industrialism since China had a “high culture”
long before the world became overwhelmed by modernity. However, he insists
that China is an untypical case for its “high culture linked more to an ethic and
a state bureaucracy than to a faith and church,” but in this way “only antici-
pated the modern linkage of state and culture” (Gellner 1983: 141). Whether
we agree with Gellner or not, there seems to be a consensus that the Chinese
writing system, which was unified by the Qin Shihuang emperor (259–210 BC),
serves as a visual stabilizer for Chinese civilization, overriding unbridgeable
communicational obstacles between languages and “dialects.”11 China, with its

logographic high culture of moral rituality and “a state bureaucracy,” has long
been taking an assimilationist approach to its minorities, and along the way
joining the chorus of modern demands, as Gellner would have it, for the con-
gruity between state and culture. This Chinese-style “civilizing project”12 is
supported by what has been praised as the liberal attitude of Confucius that is
supposed to be represented in his statement that “[towards students] only educa-
tion, not class distinction, matters” (cf. Khu et al. 1991: 262). But this seemingly
open and more inclusive attitude is premised on Confucian cultural superior-
ity and on the minorities’ presumed uncultured inferiority. This preindustrial
high culture laid the foundation for modern Chinese high culture, although
many northern peoples such as the Mongols, Uyghurs, and Tibetans are yet to
embrace Chinese high culture. Transformation of barbarity by Confucianism
remains wishful thinking in many minority areas. Even for the Han populace,
Confucianism has long been forgotten and has only come back symbolically.
Economically Boosted Linguistic Nationalism
The rise of mainstream nationalism boosted by China’s economic takeoff in

recent years is also starting to challenge minority programs. To be a modern
nation-state, China needs the boundaries of polity, economy, culture, and lan-
guage to coincide. Linguistic and cultural diversity should be discouraged rather
than encouraged, according to the builders of the Han nation-state.
As mentioned in He Baogang’s chapter, it was on September 2, 1992, that
the PRC’s Education Commission issued Method for Practicing HSK in National
Minorities Schools, a scheme designed by the Beijing Language and Culture
University and approved by professionals. The HSK is a standardized test for
non-Chinese speakers; certificates are provided to those who pass it. In 1997, the
Education Commission issued Announcement of Trial Implementation of HSK in
National Minorities Schools, which stipulated that starting from the year 1998, a
two-year trial would take place in Xinjiang. According to an official from Xinjiang
HSK Office, Chinese language learning would be promoted by the central gov-
ernment in Beijing and given top priority as a part of the Western Development
Project, a state scheme designed to close the socioeconomic gap between coastal
74 Naran Bilik
and western China. Results of the HSK test are divided into eleven grades with
six through eight deemed as mid-level and nine through eleven as high-level
proficiency.
According to educational authorities, all teachers born after 1958 (especially
those Uyghur teachers who used to teach in Uyghur) should reach the tenth
grade on the exam within three years starting from 1998. Those who fail to
achieve this proficiency will not be promoted. According to the same authori-
ties, all national minority classes should replace native languages with Chinese in
three years, with the exception of those majoring in national minority languages
and literatures. In 1999, the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Government and its
Education Bureau made a further training plan and decided that no one would be
promoted without obtaining a proper certificate for his or her Chinese level. The
background theory of those promoting Chinese language learning is that national
minority languages such as Uyghur are not as good as Chinese. While Chinese
represents advancement, minority languages symbolize backwardness; the poor
level of education on the part of the minorities results from their use of their
own languages. Even the former CPC secretary of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region, Wang Lequan, stated during an interview with CCTV that minority lan-
guages in Xinjiang contain only limited information and cannot express some of
the most advanced knowledge. Therefore it is imperative that Chinese be used
for raising teaching standards, for according to the “barrel theory,” the content of
a barrel is determined by its narrowest point, with minority languages viewed as
the key hindrance.
Based on my personal interviews with informants from Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region,13 many Han locals blame the Uyghur language for its
“backwardness” and for “facilitating separatism.” For the sake of development
and stability, therefore, bilingualism (with an emphasis on education in Chinese)
should be enforced immediately. According to those interviewees, widespread
use of the Chinese language will help stabilize the area and promote economic
and political development.
The discord in discourse and practice with regards to national minorities
betrays the split views of what China as a nation-state should consist of and how
it became what it is today. There is a troubled uncertainty about the status of
the national minorities and their connection or disconnection with China. Here
there are two versions of China: one based on the idea of cultural and linguis-
tic homogeneity, and the other on civic-territorial sovereignty, which came as
a result of the emergence of the nation-state and accommodates cultural and
linguistic diversities. Supporters for the first version justify their preference for
homogeneity not only on the grounds that it benefits smooth development and
is more economical but also on the grounds that minority cultures and languages
represent backwardness and superstition. For them, the national minorities have
essentially two choices: opt-in and become assimilated, or opt-out and become
marginalized. As Gerard Postiglione points out in this volume, national minority
cultures have been drawn into an acculturation process, with current educational
policies favoring Han accumulation over ethnic cultural capital. The wild growth
of the Chinese economy has strengthened this attitude, with many thinking that
it is high time for the national minorities to be assimilated once and for all if they
want to stay in the country. Supporters of homogeneity, however, conflate and
miss the vital difference between economic homogeneity and linguistic-cultural
diversity. Economic success does not necessarily mean linguistic-cultural success
in the sense of assimilation. Marketization, which often means homogeneity
in the management of finance, banking, production, distribution, transporta-
tion, and so forth, can serve quite different “cultural logics” after all. By way of
example, I explore the polysemy of the very notion of China below.
The Etymological Plurality of “China”
Historical memories and emotional cues that are embedded in cultural cognition
and habitual practice resist attempts of assimilation even after economic homo-
geneity. The cases involving the French in Quebec, Canada, and the Basque in
Spain, amongst others, provide telling evidence. The assimilationist approach to
education does not take full account of minority linguistic-cultural “heteroglos-
sia”14 in “translingual practice” (Liu 1995),15 and there is no better example than
the translation of “China” in Mongolian.
Under Qing rule, the Mongols were considered an ulus, which means “state/
realm,” “people,” and “tribe” in Mongolian. While the Republic of China engaged
in nation-building by associating the term for China (Zhongguo 中國) with the
term Huaxia (華夏, the Han majority), some Mongol elite articulated their
76 Naran Bilik
resistance by continuing to use their own definition for the term Zhongguo in
their own language. While in Chinese the word Zhongguo means “the central
land” (also zhongtu 中土) in antiquity and during the Republican period, in
Mongolian it can mean both “the middle nation” (dumdadu ulus) and the “Han
state/people” (Khitad). This etymological anxiety, or what Viveiros de Castro
calls “uncontrolled equivocation,”16 reflects and reproduces the Mongol-Han
relationship, I would argue. With its long history of multilingual interpretations,
today’s China, both as a notion and as an entity, is still open to such pluralism.
By re-examining the notion of China from the viewpoint of indigenous speak-
ers, for whom “signs,” “objects,” and “interpretants”17 involve different relation-
ship of negotiation (both history and power) from those of Chinese speakers, we
can locate obstacles to inter-minzu harmony and national integration in China.
It also helps us to guard against any premature declaration of the birth of a new
and homogeneous China as an outcome of an economic miracle. Behind main-
stream educational thinking lurks a linguistic-cultural anxiety over the much-
delayed moment of congruity between the boundaries of the state, language, and
culture. Names have memories that travel interlingually and serve as a reminder
for people to be aware and appreciate cultural diversity (Bilik 2009).
The nomenclatural references for Chinese idioms in a minority language
(Mongolian, for example) can unfold a wealth of past information about the
speakers’ attitudes and memories that are embedded in icons, indexes and
symbols of that language.18 For instance, China or Zhongguo (central land or
middle nation) is polysemous. It designates the capital in ancient times, and the
meaning comes from the fact that the King lives in the capital that sits concep-
tually at the center of the world. Zhongguo can also mean the region that the
Huaxia or Han people inhabit while the barbarians live around them. Following
the nineteenth century, it became coterminous with “Central Land,” “Central
Regions,” “Central Prefectures (zhongzhou 中州),” “Central Xia (zhongxia 中
夏),” and “Central Florescence (zhonghua 中華).”
How the concepts of minzu (nationality, nation, ethnic group, minority,
people), guojia (國家, state), and minzu (guomin) guojia (民族〔國民〕國家,
nation-state) are expressed in minority languages is a subject that has been long-
neglected by scholarship in China. Here I will provide a few discursive examples
that come from the Mongolian language. An analysis of the translated Mongolian
words for such concepts reveals the fact that these words were foreign to the
Mongols and were understood and categorized differently. Take the Chinese
concept of “state,” for example, in Mongolian there are three equivalents: ulus
(people), gurun (a Manchurian loan word), and oron19 (to enter, place-holder,
replacement, throne, place, place of staying). When a Mongolian speaker men-
tions a state, however, he or she tends to use the word ulus most often.20 The
category and classification of “people” rather than “land” is more important.21 In
the past, especially in the Genghis Khan era, the Mongols used the word Khitan
to refer to the northern Han, Khitan, and Korean people.22 The Southern Song
people were called Nanggiyad (pinyin: nanjia; Manchurian: nikan, cf. Wulan
2000: 78). In Genghis’s time, the Mongols called their own state Mongol ulus
and that of the Khitan they called Khitad Ulus, a name that came to designate
the People’s Republic of China in both Mongolia and Russia. Therefore, today,
the word Khitad (Khitan) can be used to designate both China the nation-state
and the Han people. To avoid confusion, Inner Mongolians coined the term
Dumdadu Ulus as the formal name for the People’s Republic of China. This leaves
the Inner Mongolians with an ambiguous status: on the one hand they call them-
selves Mongol and call the Han Khitad but, on the other hand, they are catego-
rized as Khitad together with the Han by people of the Republic of Mongolia.
Mongolian speakers have different terms for China depending on where, when,
and to whom they are speaking. The Chinese word minzu is rendered as undusten
in Mongolian, which means the “root (of a plant),” and does not involve the
meaning of a nation-state etymologically. These are cases of “uncontrolled
equivocation,” the type of communicative misunderstanding that Viveiros de
Castro highlights with persuasion (Blaser 2009). Take, as another example, the
meaning of Zhonghua minzu (中華民族, the Chinese nation) that is translated
into Mongolian as Dumdadu-in undusuten-nuud, which literally means “roots of
the middle.” While in the source language (Chinese), the term is singular in form
and denotes a unitary state, the latter is plural in form and signifies a multina-
tional state. Of course, in Chinese itself, the term Zhonghua minzu is also unsta-
ble, and used to mean “the Chinese nationalities” as well as the singular “Chinese
nation.”
Seeking to establish an independent Mongol state, Prince De
(Demchugdongrub), a Mongolian nationalist leader during the 1930s and early
78 Naran Bilik
1940s, collaborated with the Japanese authorities and the pro-Japanese govern-
ment of Wang Jingwei in founding an autonomous Mongolian state (August
1941–August 1945), where the word “country” (guo 國 in Chinese) was avoided
and the word “state” (bang 邦 in Chinese) was used. However, in this case, there
is only one word in Mongolian for both guo and bang, which is ulus. Thus “the
formal title of this new regime became Monggol-un Obesuben Jasakhu Ulus, a
title satisfactory to Mongol patriotic feelings” ( Jagchid 1999: 259; cf. Bilik 2009).
Such etymological plurality and multicultural evolvement is further illus-
trated by the Turkic name for China, Tabgach or Tuoba 拓拔 in Chinese, which
was originally the name of a northern people who established the Northern
Wei (386–534), Eastern Wei (534–550), and Western Wei (535–556) dynas-
ties and became well known throughout the Turkic speaking world. Yet the term
Tabghach (Tuoba) is also used to designate China as a nation-state ( Jia 1989).
This preliminary etymological exploration, although it might sound basic, drives
home the fact that peoples who do not share the same historic and cultural back-
grounds have constructed today’s China.23
Conclusion
The foundation of mainstream educational thinking in contemporary China

is mono-cultural centrism, the sort of thinking that coincides with Gellner’s
formula of nation-building and modernity: “one nation, one state, one culture,
and one language.” This sort of homogeneous ideology fosters mono-cultural
education that fundamentally conflicts with multicultural education. Yet the ety-
mological anxiety and linguistic disconnects explored in this chapter testify to
the limitations and impasse of adopting a single national curriculum or set of
textbooks that are translated into minority languages. Instead, this etymologi-
cal plurality highlights the wisdom of the “local curriculum materials” (xiangtu
jiaocai 鄉土教材, cf. Postiglione and Gao in this volume) that embodies the
diversity of local knowledge and ancestral wisdom.
Recent “thick description” ethnographies by anthropologists, some of them
from minority backgrounds (cf. Yuan 2004; Ban 2010), reveal that minorities’
notions of China do not necessarily accord with mainstream thinking. Folk theo-
ries of success in education among national minorities can be very different from
those of the mainstream (Harrell and Ma 1999). It is imperative for multicultural

education that Han students are taught this fact, which leads to appreciation of
the diversity and value of different cognitive and cultural systems. Cultural cen-
trism is responsible for tensions between majority and minority populations in
China, and mainstream thinkers and policymakers need to learn some anthro-
pological basics before they can fully grasp what has happened and why. As
Arienne Dwyer (2005: 65) points out: “It could be Han chauvinism that leads
to a breakup of China.”
In sum, as it is now territorially defined, China remains a linguistically and
culturally diversified space. The different ways of thinking about and express-
ing the very idea of China sabotage any wishful thinking about a homogene-
ous Middle State, as much as it highlights the necessity of polyphonic dialogue
and negotiation, an open and ongoing process of symbiosis that accommodates
human diversity.
Part II
Minority Education on the Frontier:

Language and Identity
4
Bilingual Education and Language
Policy in Tibet
Ma Rong
As a united multiethnic nation with thousands of years of history and a brilliant

cultural tradition, China has developed a “pluralist unity” (duoyuan yiti 多元一
體) pattern in language usage accompanying the process of political, economic,
and cultural integration. Although many groups have their individual mother
tongues and writing systems, Putonghua1 has been learned and practiced by
most of the population as the “common language” for communication in China
for centuries. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in
1949, the administrative, economic, and cultural integration of all regions of
China experienced a new period of industrialization and modernization. During
this period, students of standard Putonghua included not only Han residents in
central and coastal China who spoke various dialects, but also ethnic minorities
with their own languages living in the western regions. With a huge Han popula-
tion of over 1.23 billion and Han regions more advanced in terms of education
and economy when compared to minority areas, China has established a modern
school system with Putonghua as the language of instruction and a Putonghua
publication system. This education and publication system (including a very effi-
cient English-Putonghua translation network supported by millions of transla-
tors and editors) in the Putonghua language provides great opportunities for all
Chinese people to access updated knowledge and track progress in all fields and
from all parts of the world. As a learning tool for accessing modern knowledge,
Putonghua has become the most useful language for the modernization of China
(Ma 2001: 234–35).
For centuries, a number of minority groups (Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazakh,
Mongol, etc.) in western parts of China have maintained their own languages
84 Ma Rong
and traditional cultures. Regarding the history and future development of the
Chinese nation, all languages and cultural traditions of all groups in China are
important components of the culture of the Chinese nation. It is the responsibil-
ity of the government and all of its citizens to help all groups in China inherit
and develop their languages and cultural traditions. Based on this principle,
the proper management of the structure of Putonghua and minority languages
instruction constitutes one important aspect of school system design. Minority
students should learn their mother tongue in order to inherit their traditional
culture and Putonghua for intergroup communication and participation in
national social and economic development. At the same time, Han students
should also be encouraged to study minority languages and cultures. This sort
of two-way language learning will serve the national unity of all Chinese people,
and meet the goal of maintaining the cultural diversity of human heritages.
Several factors are related to education system design. First, the curriculum
structure must follow a course-time limitation. Second, for groups that have
an oral language but no written script (such as the Bao’an and Sala minorities),
mother-language courses are difficult to design. Third, the academic results of
course development and learning processes are affected by the quality of minor-
ity language textbooks and teachers. Therefore, how to reach a proper balance
between Putonghua and minority-language instruction while maintaining and
improving school education has become a key issue in minority education in
today’s China. A properly instructive language structure will meet the need of
minorities to inherit their cultural tradition while helping minority students
to master modern knowledge and create more opportunities for themselves in
the job market. This chapter reviews the bilingual education process and policy
adjustments made in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), including all rel-
evant government documents and their implementation. It also discusses key
issues related to bilingual education based on official statistics, research literature
and field interviews.
Previous Studies on Educational Development and Bilingual

Teaching in Tibet
There are very few historical records and research reports that relate to educa-
tion in Tibet. The earliest historical document was a report submitted to the
Bilingual Education and Language Policy in Tibet 85
Nationalist (Guomindang 國民黨) government by Wu Zhongxin, the chief

of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, after his visit to Lhasa for
the enthronement ceremony of the fourteenth Dalai Lama in 1939. This report
was published in Taiwan in 1953 under the title Tibet Summary. A second book
edited by Tanzen and Zhang Xiangming, Tibet in Today’s China, published in
1991, devoted one section of the twenty-first chapter to education. Education
in Tibet (1991) was written by Durji Tseden, and provides detailed information
about the educational systems of Tibet, from the Tubo Kingdom period (AD
644–842) until 1949.
Studies of Education in Tibet (1989), edited by Geng Jinsheng and Wang
Xihong, contains a collection of papers concerning Tibetan education. Zhou
Wei’s Tibetan Language and Society (2003) provides a detailed review of the lan-
guage policy-making process in Tibet. Another book edited by Zhou Wei and
Kelzang Gyaltsen, Tibetan Language Work in the TAR (2004), is a collection of
all language policy documents issued by the TAR government, including impor-
tant speeches by the TAR leaders and research reports on language from 1987
to 2003. Zhang Tingfang edited two books on bilingual education in Tibet:
Putonghua Teaching and Studies of Minority Students in Tibet provides an intro-
duction to the implementation of bilingual education in Tibet, while Selected
Papers on Putonghua Teaching of Minority Students in Tibet is a collection of papers
published since the 1980s on bilingual education in the TAR.
Catriona Bass, in her book Education in Tibet: Policy and Practice since 1950
(1998), introduces language policy dynamics and school practices since 1950,
and applies a framework of “quality vs. quantity preference” in interpreting policy
adjustment (Bass 1998: 22). Another paper discusses the school development
process in Tibetan areas outside the TAR (Upton 1999). A more recent paper
by Gerard Postiglione on rural schools in Tibet provides fieldwork data in order
to reach an in-depth understanding of the education process in villages and dis-
cusses key policy issues in the schooling system (Postiglione 2007). Collectively,
the above literature provides statistical data, official reports, research reports, and
policy discussions that provide many insights for understanding the processes of
educational development in Tibet.
86 Ma Rong
The Process of Bilingual Education Development in the TAR since

1951
The development of modern education and bilingual teaching in Tibet since

1951 can be divided into six periods:
Coexistence of the Tibet Working Committee and the Kashag

Government, 1952–58
During this period, there were two parallel authorities: the Tibet Working
Committee under the central government and the Kashag administration under
the fourteenth Dalai Lama. Many issues had to be discussed and managed
through negotiation between the two authorities. There were thirteen primary
schools established during this period and only the Tibetan language and Tibetan
textbooks were used for instruction. In 1952, the courses in the Lhasa Primary
School included Tibetan language, mathematics, natural knowledge, politics,
and Tibetan Buddhist scripture (Local Annals of the Editing Committee of the
TAR 2005: 13; Durji 1991: 76).
The Lhasa Middle School was established in 1956. Its curriculum included
Tibetan, Putonghua, mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, geography, and
sports. All courses were taught in Tibetan and there was even a Buddhist scrip-
ture class for lama students. The principle was: “Tibetan as the main language
in instruction while also learning Putonghua” (Zhang 2007a: 41). This middle
school also had a special class using Putonghua as the language of instruction,
and the students of this class were mainly the children of Han cadres and some
Tibetan cadres.
In 1959, some middle schools established a “high school program.” These
programs used Putonghua as their main language of instruction while also offer-
ing a course in Tibetan. The schools at that time turned to Putonghua to teach
high school courses because they lacked the necessary Tibetan-language text-
books (for courses like mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.). Because
no modern schools existed in Tibet before 1951 and all Tibetan textbooks were
translated and edited from Putonghua editions after 1951, it became very dif-
ficult to translate these science textbooks into Tibetan as Tibetan translators
had not yet learned the requisite subjects and few Han Chinese had mastered
Tibetan.
Period of Land Reform, 1959–65
After the fourteenth Dalai Lama and the Kashag officials fled to India in March
1959, the Tibet Working Committee became the sole administrative authority in
the TAR. “Land reform” was carried out that same year. A document on educa-
tion issued by the Tibet Working Committee and the Preparatory Committee
of the TAR in 1959 stated that “there is no fixed percentage of languages
(Putonghua and Tibetan) in school instruction. Tibetan courses are required,
and Putonghua courses will be experimental in public primary schools. A plan
will be made in the future when Putonghua teaching becomes mature” (Zhang
2007a: 13). During this period many community schools appeared in Tibet. A
document issued in 1961 by the Tibet Working Committee requested that “at
least three courses (Tibetan language, mathematics and politics) should be in
the curriculum of community primary schools, and Putonghua course offerings
would depend on people’s willingness and the conditions of teaching” (Zhang
2007a: 14).
The documents issued by the TAR government in 1961, 1963, and 1964
mentioned that: “Putonghua language courses should start during the third
grade in public primary schools” (Local Annals of the Editing Committee of
the TAR 2005: 14). In rural areas, all community school courses were taught
in Tibetan, while urban-area public schools offered two parallel programs: a
Tibetan language class and a Putonghua class. All subjects in the Tibetan stream
were taught in Tibetan, with a Putonghua subject that started in the third grade.
In contrast, all subjects in the Putonghua stream were taught in Putonghua,
with a Tibetan subject that also started in the third grade (Research Group
on Minority Education Project 1989a: 39). A document issued by the Tibet
Working Committee in 1961 required that: “Han teachers in public primary and
middle schools should be able to teach their courses in the Tibetan language for
years one and two, while Tibetan teachers should also learn Putonghua” (Zhang
2007a: 25).
88 Ma Rong
In 1963, significant progress was made in textbook editing. That year, text-
books in Tibetan on Tibetan language (volumes 1–8), mathematics (volumes
1–8), and Putonghua (volumes 1–6) were completed and published (Durji
1991: 94). These textbooks systematically improved the quality of school educa-
tion in Tibet.
The Cultural Revolution, 1966–76
The Cultural Revolution disturbed the order in Tibetan schools. “Many schools
in Tibet did not recruit students or teach courses for four years. When courses
restarted, the teaching order was also disturbed by political movements. The
total number of students in school greatly declined during this period” (Gu and
Gong 1989: 225–26). When order was restored to schools during the 1970s, this
was accompanied by a new emphasis on Putonghua learning. In October 1973,
the Education Bureau of the TAR requested that: “Putonghua courses should be
taught in rural schools when conditions are ready there. When conditions are
available in urban primary schools, Tibetan students in first grade should take
Putonghua courses first and then Tibetan language courses” (Local Annals of the
Editing Committee of the TAR 2005: 14). This was a turning point in the prior-
ity of language learning from Tibetan to Putonghua.
Following Mao Zedong’s call that “Han should learn Tibetan, and Tibetans
should learn Putonghua,” in 1974 “all Tibetan and Han students in the TAR
began to have Putonghua and Tibetan language courses at third and fourth
grades in primary schools” (Zhang 2007a: 36).
In 1974 the TAR initiated a “great leap forward” in educational development.
Their campaign sought rapid growth in student recruitment but ignored the
number of teachers and quality of teaching. The TAR government called for the
establishment of a middle school in every county, a full primary school in every
district, and a partial primary school (from first to third grades) for every rural
productive team (village). As a result, the total number of primary schools nearly
doubled from 3,570 in 1974 to 6,272 in 1976. In 1979, “community schools
consisted of 90.8 percent of the total number of primary schools while only 3.8
percent of these schools were full primary schools. Many schools with the title
of middle school actually taught primary school courses, and about 70 percent
of the teachers in primary and middle schools were not qualified” (Wang 1989:
19).
Adjustment Period after the Cultural Revolution, 1976–86
The community schools were reorganized after the end of the Cultural
Revolution, and the total number of primary schools in the TAR declined from
6,262 in 1981 to 2,542 in 1983. The total number of middle schools also declined
from 79 to 55 during the same period (Peng 1989: 83).
In 1976, the TAR government asked schools to “start Putonghua courses for
Tibetan classes and Tibetan courses for Han classes during the fourth grade.” By
1980, “all community primary schools were required to teach in the Tibetan lan-
guage and start Putonghua courses at fifth grade.” In 1982, “all public primary
schools were required to teach in Tibetan, use Tibetan textbooks, and start
Putonghua courses during fourth grade. Meantime, Han classes were required
to teach in Putonghua and start Tibetan language courses during fourth grade”
(Local Annals of the Editing Committee of the TAR 2005: 16–17). In 1979, the
curriculum of primary schools in Tibet offered eight subjects (politics, Tibetan,
Putonghua, mathematics, natural knowledge, sports, music, and art), and
Tibetan schools started Putonghua instruction during the fourth grade. “During
this period, there was constant debate on the curriculum and on what grade to
start Putonghua courses, which led to unstable policy implementation” (Zhang
2007a: 37).
The First Tibetan Work Conference was held in 1980. Hu Yaobang visited
Lhasa and called for correcting “all mistakes during the Cultural Revolution”
(Tanzen and Zhang 1991: 397). The government tried to encourage Tibetan
nobles and senior monks who fled to India to return to Tibet by offering them
large sums of money as compensation for their losses during “land reform”
and high positions in the People’s Representative Committee and People’s
Political Consultative Conference (Ma 2011b: 174). The government spent a
lot of money rebuilding monasteries that were destroyed or damaged during the
Cultural Revolution, while the number of monks also increased significantly.2
As a result, the old autocracy and senior monks with strong links to traditional
Tibetan culture regained high status in Tibetan society and once again exerted
90 Ma Rong
strong influence over political discourse. They called for the strengthening of
Tibetan language study and traditional Buddhist culture, and their efforts led to
adjustments in school language instruction during the late 1980s.
Figure 4.1 shows the basic pattern of language teaching in the TAR during
this period. With the exception of language subjects, all courses were taught in
Putonghua at the middle and high school levels before 1988. Primary schools,
however, used Tibetan as their main language of instruction. This led to a lan-
guage gap between primary schools and middle schools, and about 99 percent
of Tibetan primary school students had to attend a one-year preparatory
program to improve their Putonghua proficiency before entering middle school.
Because of this language barrier, they faced difficulties in undertaking subjects
in Putonghua and produced poor exam scores in mathematics and other disci-
plines. Furthermore, due to the lack of qualified Tibetan teachers, there was only
one middle school with all its subjects taught in Tibetan.
Figure 4.1 Language teaching systems in the TAR (1988)
1 college (3 disciplines) 3 colleges (23 disciplines)
no high 1 specialized 13 specialized

18 high schools
schools secondary school secondary schools
1 junior middle school 49 junior middle schools

1 year
(3 classes)
preparatory
Putonghua
2,412 primary schools class 200 classes in primary schools
130 kindergarten classes 10 kindergarten classes
Tibetan language stream Putonghua language stream
Sources: Liu 1989: 500; Zhou 2003: 366.

A Period of “Bringing Order Out of Chaos,” 1987–93
The year 1987 marked a turning point in the history of Tibetan language instruc-
tion in school education. On July 9, the tenth Panchan Lama and a senior
Tibetan leader Ngapo Ngawang Jigme together proposed the use of Tibetan as
the main teaching language in all TAR schools. Then, in 1987 and 1988, the TAR
government issued several documents listing detailed regulations on the use of
the Tibetan language in administration, public affairs, and schools.
These “Regulations” required that all primary school courses for Tibetan
students should be taught in Tibetan, and that these students should also learn
Putonghua as a second language starting in fourth grade in rural schools and
third grade in urban schools. It also required Tibetan as the primary language
of instruction in middle schools and universities for Tibetan students. Han stu-
dents in the TAR, in turn, should learn Tibetan at “a certain [undefined] grade”
(Zhou 2003: 96–97; Bass 1998: 53). The second clause in “Several Regulations
for Learning, Using and Developing the Tibetan language in the TAR” issued by
the TAR government on July 9, 1987 required that “both Tibetan and Putonghua
are to be used in administration but Tibetan is the main language” (Zhou 2004:
54). Clearly, the goal of this new policy was to establish a Tibetan-language edu-
cational system, from kindergarten through university. To illustrate, Table 4.1
shows the language course structure for primary, middle and high schools in the
TAR by grade.
Table 4.1 Language course arrangement in primary, middle and high schools in the TAR
during the late 1980s
Tibetan stream: language courses (hours per week)
Primary school Junior middle school High school
Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 1 2 3
Tibetan 13 14 14 9 8 8 4 6 6 5 3 3
Putonghua – – – 5 5 6 13 9 6 6 5 5
Han stream: language courses (hours per week)
Primary school Junior middle school High school
Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 1 2 3
Tibetan – – – 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2
Putonghua 13 14 14 11 9 9 6 6 6 5 5 5
Source: Zhou Wei 2003: 376–77.
92 Ma Rong
The TAR government issued another document in 1987 that required “all first
grade students in the fall semester of 1987 should be organized into different
classes by ethnic status. Tibetan classes must take all courses in Tibetan language;
they can take a subject in Putonghua language learning beginning in fourth
grade (six hours per week) under the condition that Tibetan courses will not
be affected. Han classes will take courses in Putonghua while starting a Tibetan
language subject during third grade (five hours per week)” (Zhang 2007a: 38).
That same year, the TAR also organized all students in middle schools by ethnic
status (Zhang 2007a: 44). Thus, the TAR enforced ethnic segregation in schools
by official regulation.
As a result, an interesting phenomenon developed in late 1987, many Tibetan
parents refused to send their children to the Tibetan stream when segregation
was put into practice. A report in 1989 stated that some Tibetans supported the
right of parents to make their own decision about whether to send their children
to Tibetan- or Putonghua-based classes. Some Tibetan parents preferred to send
their children to schools that taught mainly in Putonghua. Among the reasons
they gave, these parents included “the limitation of the Tibetan language in work
and business, as well as the limitation in learning modern sciences and tech-
nology” (Research Group on Minority Education Project 1989a: 41). Because
Putonghua offers obvious advantages to future educational opportunities (such
as attending top universities) and employment, some Tibetan parents even
sent their children to Han regions outside the TAR for schooling if they could
afford it.
“The Inland Tibetan Classes” (Xizang neidiban 西藏內地班) for junior
middle and high schools in coastal cities started recruiting Tibetan students
in 1985. A total of 1,300 students were recruited that year. About 33,100 stu-
dents attended “Inland Tibetan Class/Schools” between 1985 and 2006. These
classes and schools are attached to the best schools in China’s big coastal cities or
were established independently with huge government budgets. Therefore, they
provide the best resources for education, with all costs borne by the government.
Many of their graduates go on to enter top universities in China. All these factors
make the “Inland Tibetan Classes” very attractive to Tibetan families. Therefore,
the desire to learn Putonghua and attend an “Inland Tibetan Class” has become
an important factor motivating many Tibetan parents to send their children to
Putonghua teaching schools at the primary level.
This debate over language of instruction and parents’ decisions over preferred
school types reflect the diverse opinions that exist within Tibetan society and
among its people. Some Tibetan elites pay more attention to preserving their
cultural traditions and insist on Tibetan language teaching in schools, while
many ordinary Tibetans prefer Putonghua because it seems much more useful in
seeking educational opportunities and competing in the job market. Most high-
ranking Tibetan officials emphasize the importance of the Tibetan language in
government meetings despite the fact that they send their own children to Han
schools in nearby Chengdu, Sichuan Province. This phenomenon is often dis-
cussed by other Tibetans who prefer Putonghua as the language of instruction in
school (Research Group on Minority Education Project 1989a: 41).
Table 4.2 introduces the structure of language teaching in TAR schools
at various levels in 1991. Due to the emphasis that the authorities placed on
Tibetan in schools, the total number of primary school students taking courses
in Putonghua was limited due to a lack of qualified teachers. In 1991, only
6.8 percent of primary school students, most of them Han, had experienced
Table 4.2 Language of instruction in schools in the TAR (1991)

Teaching Number of Number of
% %
language students teachers
Putonghua 11,475 6.8 1,698 20.2
2,652 primary
Tibetan 156,587 93.2 6,710 79.8
schools
Total 168,062 100 8,408 100
Putonghua 13,586 79.7 1,326 75.9
42 junior middle
Tibetan 3,468 20.3 422 24.1
schools
Total 17,054 100 1,748 100
Putonghua 4,245 89.4 580 97.3
19 high schools Tibetan 503 10.6 16 2.7
Total 4,748 100 596 100
32 junior middle (Minorities) 8,382 100 107 11.5
schools (“three (Han) 0 0 820 88.5
guarantees”) Total 8,382 100 927 100
7 high schools (Minorities) 1,551 100 9 4.5
(“three (Han) 0 0 193 95.5
guarantees”) Total 1,551 100 202 100
Source: Editorial Group of Chinese Educational Yearbook 1993: 654.
94 Ma Rong
Putonghua as a teaching language. However, this percentage increased to 80

and 89.4 percent among junior-middle and high school students respectively.
The language gap between primary and middle schools remained an important
factor.
Table 4.3 introduces the courses taught by Han and Tibetan teachers in TAR
middle schools and high schools in both 1988 and 2005. In 1988, 328 teach-
ers at the junior-middle level were teaching Putonghua courses (214 Han and
114 Tibetan teachers) while only 97 teachers taught courses using the Tibetan
language. In general, Han teachers taught mostly science-based subjects, such as
math and physics and this pattern grows more pronounced at the high school
level. Therefore, training more qualified Tibetan teachers in the sciences needs to
be a key goal if the ethnic structure in teaching is to remain in balance.
The quality of Tibetan textbooks for scientific subjects presents another issue.
Before 1949, Qinghai Province had a more advanced school education system,
so Tibetan textbooks edited in Qinghai were introduced to the TAR. However,
the Tibetan dialect in Qinghai, Amdo, differs from the Lhasa dialect of the TAR,
and in 1989 some Tibetan teachers reported that “the present Tibetan textbooks
were written in Amdo (Qinghai) dialect, making them difficult to understand,
to learn and to teach, [which] is why teachers even prefer using Putonghua text-
books” (Research Group on Minority Education Project 1989b: 64).
Since 2002, the enrollment of school-age children at the primary school level
has surpassed 90 percent, and the enrollment rate of primary school graduates in
junior-middle school has reached 98.4 percent (see Table 4.4). This means that
the goal of “nine years of compulsory education” has been achieved in the TAR.
However, the enrollment rate of middle school graduates in high school reached
only 55.2 percent in 2009. Therefore, the development of high school education
is the next step for the development of education in Tibet.
A Period of Reform, 1994–Present
“The nine-year compulsory education curriculum plan,” issued by the Education

Commission of the TAR in 1994, no longer mandated Tibetan language subjects
in Han classes. As a result, bilingual teaching in the TAR shifted from a two-way
to a one-way learning pattern. Tibetans must learn Putonghua, but Han are not
Table 4.3 Teacher distribution in junior middle schools and high schools in the TAR (1988 and 2005)
1988 2005
Course Junior middle High school Junior middle High school
Total Total
subjects school teachers teachers school teachers teachers
Han Tibetan Han Tibetan Han Tibetan Han Tibetan Han Tibetan Han Tibetan
Politics 49 17 25 4 74 21 147 254 73 44 220 298
Tibetan 0 97 0 32 0 129
616 831 206 146 822 977
Putonghua 214 114 61 9 275 123
Math 183 132 60 8 243 140 433 594 189 80 622 674
Physics 91 36 45 6 136 42 190 172 100 53 290 225
Chemistry 83 16 45 2 128 18 112 180 97 40 209 220
Biology 27 1 22 1 49 2 71 149 42 29 113 178
Geography 29 7 18 5 47 12 53 108 47 31 100 139
History 30 13 28 2 58 15 80 135 59 55 139 190
English 48 5 27 0 75 5 432 162 173 51 605 213
Music 14 9 0 0 14 9 49 71 13 8 62 79
Sports 19 38 19 12 38 50 118 169 46 53 164 222
Arts 8 6 0 0 8 6 69 64 7 9 76 73
Infor. tech – – – – – – 127 32 33 9 160 41
Labor skill – – – – – – 31 67 1 6 32 73
Others – – – – – – 22 509 5 151 27 660
No Course – – – – – – 85 107 31 35 116 142
Total 795 491 350 81 1145 572 2635 3604 1122 800 3757 4404
% 61.8 38.2 81.2 18.8 66.7 33.3 42.2 57.8 58.4 41.6 46 54
Sources: Minority Education Study Institute of TAR 1989: 295; Education Bureau of the TAR 2005: 70.
96 Ma Rong
Table 4.4 School enrollment rates for school-age children and graduation rates in the
TAR (%)
Enrollment rate of Enrollment rate of
School enrollment rate graduates of primary graduates of junior
Year
in primary school school in middle middle school in high
school school
1981 76 29.6 –
1982 78 41.1 38.1
1983 42.1 49.7 39.2
1984 46.3 44 36
1985 46 44.9 49.4
1986 50 47.9 44.4
1987 48.4 53.2 48.8
1988 55.7 39.6 41.3
1989 53.1 73.6 40.7
1990 67.4* 62.1 36.2
1991 45.6 67.7 32.9
1992 52.4 62.7 32.4
1993 58.9 74 30.2
1994 66.6 87.3 29.9
1995 70.4 67.7 43.2
1996 73.5 66.7 35.6
1997 78.2 61.7 52.8
1998 81.3 62.9 47.1
1999 81.7 45.2 66.6
2000 85.8 55 82.5
2001 87.2 67 73.3
2002 88.3 71.1 77.3
2003 91.8 82.9 72.1
2004 94.7 92.3 61.7
2005 95.9 91.7 50.5
2006 96.5 92 42.5
2007 98.2 97.1 58
2008 98.5 93.8 48.8
2009 98.8 98.4 55.2
Source: Statistical Bureau of the TAR 2010: 245.
required to learn Tibetan. “According to 1994 educational statistics, 94.4 percent

of primary school students took subjects in both Tibetan and Putonghua. The
percentage of this learning pattern decreases to 23.6 percent for junior-middle
school students, and further to 5 percent for high school students” (Tanzen et
al. 2007: 44).
The TAR reorganized primary schools in 1995. The total number of primary
schools shrank from 3,943 in 1995 to 790 in 1996 while the total number of
primary school students during the same period increased from 258,651 to
284,350 (Statistical Bureau of the TAR 2010: 236, 239). In 2000, the bilingual
teaching pattern in TAR primary schools changed as follows: 95 percent of stu-
dents studied under the model, “Tibetan as the teaching language plus Putonghua
language subjects”; 5 percent under the model, “Putonghua as the teaching lan-
guage plus Tibetan language subjects” (mainly “Han classes” in urban areas).3
By comparison, 13 percent of junior-middle school students and 5.7 percent of
high school students studied under the “Tibetan as the teaching language plus
Putonghua language subjects” model (Zhou 2003: 376–79). As Zhang notes:
In 2003, there were 982 primary schools and 2,020 teaching sites in the
TAR,4 with a total of 4,228 teachers teaching Putonghua language subjects,
including 623 Han (14.7 percent) and 3,605 minority teachers. Since 2001,
urban primary school started teaching Putonghua during the first grade.
But not all schools in rural areas can follow this pattern, mainly due to the
lack of teachers (Zhang 2007a: 40).
Table 4.5 presents the age structure of all TAR students during the 2005–
2006 academic year. Several points can be summarized. First, most children
entered primary school at the age of 7 years old (74.7 percent). Second, most
entered junior-middle school and high school at the ages of 13 and 16 respec-
tively. Third, if we assume that the grade levels of students remain stable, then
90.6 percent of primary school graduates enter junior-middle school, close to the
official statistic presented in Table 4.4 (91.7 percent). However, only 36 percent
of junior-middle school graduates entered high school, much lower than the per-
centage stated in Table 4.4 (50.5 percent). This difference needs further study.
Fourth, 95.6 percent of all primary school students were Tibetan, compared with
94.5 of junior-middle school students. The percentage of Tibetans among high
school students drops, however, to 86 percent. This probably indicates that Han
students are more eager to study at the high school level.
Table 4.5 Student distribution in schools in the TAR (2005–2006 academic year)
Primary school students
98
Age 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade 4th grade 5th grade 6th grade Total
≤5 206 12 1 – – – 219
6 4,039 279 10 5 – – 4,333
7 40,907 4,879 501 18 – – 46,305
8 6,549 39,543 5,614 533 35 – 52,274
9 1,445 7,851 37,746 5,951 613 59 53,665
10 717 2,939 7,747 33,759 5,954 640 51,756
11 497 1,350 2,880 8,811 32,050 5,142 50,730
12 328 957 1,185 3,815 9,188 29,654 45,127
13 50 505 634 1,446 3,892 8,746 15,273
14 22 226 279 602 1,330 2,962 5,421
≥15 1 41 102 354 599 1,297 2,394
Total 54,761 58,582 56,699 55,294 53,661 48,500 327,497
Minorities 52,440 56,363 54,307 52,816 50,998 46,173 313,097
Minority % 95.8 96.2 95.8 95.5 95 93.1 95.6
Junior middle school students High school students

Age 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade Age 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade Total
≤10 11 – – ≤14 359 15 – 374
11 419 28 – 15 3,379 359 27 3,765
12 3,049 464 29 16 4,829 2,733 341 7,903
13 28,708 4,420 581 17 2,966 4,576 1,771 9,313
14 7,962 26,310 4,114 18 1,001 2,259 4,077 7,337
15 2,835 7,465 23,937 19 258 562 2,502 3,322
16 712 1,432 5,114 20 70 184 746 1,000
17 203 658 1,595 21 11 32 285 328
≥18 65 179 416 ≥22 – – – –
Total 43,964 40,956 35,786 Total 12,873 10,720 9,749 33,342
Minorities 41,481 38,768 33,772 Minorities 11,225 9,302 8,135 28,662
Ma Rong
Minority % 94.4 94.7 94.4 Minority % 87.2 86.8 83.4 86

Source: Education Bureau of the TAR 2005: 57, 60, 62, 92.
Key Issues for Bilingual Education in Tibet
The Models for Bilingual Education in the TAR
Zhang Tingfang (2007) summarizes seven models of bilingualism in her book

Situation and Studies of Putonghua Teaching among Minorities in Tibet. They are
very helpful for understanding the development and present situation of the
educational system in the TAR. They are as follows (see also Table 4.6):
Model I: All subjects are taught in Tibetan except Putonghua, which stu-
dents study as a second language beginning in the third or fourth grade.
This model has been put into practice for Tibetan classes in most primary
schools and some junior-middle schools.
Model II: Putonghua is the language of instruction, and courses taught in
both Putonghua and Tibetan begin at first grade. Schools practice bilingual
teaching, offering a majority of their subjects in Putonghua and some in
Tibetan. During the 1990s, seven primary schools in Lhasa practiced this
model, while other urban schools adopted this model before the end of the
twentieth century.
Model III: Schools offer both Putonghua and Tibetan language subjects at
the same time. Likewise, some courses are taught in Putonghua and others
in Tibetan. During the 1990s, about one-fourth of all Tibetan classes at the
junior-middle school level practiced this model.
Model IV: Schools teach in Tibetan while also offering opportunities
to learn Putonghua in primary school. After graduation from primary
school, students attend a one-year “preparatory program” to improve their
Putonghua knowledge, after which they enter junior-middle school where
the language of instruction switches to Putonghua. During the 1970s–90s,
most junior middle schools in the TAR practiced this model.
Model V: Putonghua is the medium of instruction for all subjects except
the Tibetan language. Courses in both Putonghua and Tibetan subjects
start during the first grade. Students can then make use of both languages
for further study or work after graduation from high school. This is the
model in practice in most primary and middle schools in the TAR today.
Model VI: This model is practiced in some remote minority areas, by such
ethnic groups as the Monpa, Lopa, Sarpa, and Deng. Here, some ethnic
groups possess only an oral language and no system of writing. Students
from these groups learn both Tibetan and Putonghua, using their native
language to assist them.
100
Table 4.6 Language teaching models in schools in the TAR

Tibetan lan- Putonghua language Other courses Other courses taught
Model Period School applied
guage course course taught in Tibetan in Putonghua
Majority primary From 3rd and 4th
All courses except
I 1988–1998 schools, some junior All grades grades in primary None
Putonghua
middle schools school
7 primary schools in From 1st grade in All courses except
II 1990s All grades None
Lhasa primary school Tibetan language
1/4 of junior middle
III 1980s–1990s All grades All grades About half courses About half courses
schools
4-year junior middle The first year to All courses except
IV 1970s–1990s All grades None
schools improve Putonghua Tibetan language
From 1st grade in
V Present Most primary schools All grades Most courses None
primary school
Junior middle and high From 1st grade in All courses except
VI Present All grades None
schools primary school Tibetan language
Professional secondary All courses except
VII Present All grades All grades None
schools and colleges Tibetan language
Source: Zhang Tingfang 2007a: 16–17.
Ma Rong
Model VII: Schools offer subjects in Tibetan literature, medicine, and lan-
guage in Tibetan and all other courses in Putonghua. This model is prac-
ticed by professional secondary schools and universities and colleges in the
TAR (T. Zhang 2007a: 16–17).
According to a 2007 report, about 95 percent of all primary schools in the

TAR follow Model V. Among Tibetan students in junior-middle schools, 13
percent (about 4,000 students) studied under the Tibetan-teaching model
(where all courses are taught in Tibetan except Putonghua), compared with only
5.7 percent (381 students) at the high school level (Research Group of the TAR
Bilingual Education Commission 2007: 34). The trend is clear: the teaching
model shifts from the traditional Tibetan- to Putonghua-teaching model when-
ever Tibetan students advance to higher stages in the educational system.
Three Opinions Regarding the Teaching Models in the TAR
In her book, Zhang Tingfang introduces three opinions about language policy in
the TAR school system:
(1) All Tibetan students should take all their subjects in the Tibetan lan-
guage. The primary reason is the rights of ethnic minorities guaranteed in
the Constitution and the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy; the secondary
reason is to inherit and develop Tibetan traditional culture; and the third
reason is to satisfy the emotional needs of the Tibetan people . . . a Tibetan
teaching system should be established from primary school through to
university.
(2) Selection of teaching language should concern not only the emotional
needs of minorities to preserve their own culture, but the need for future
social development of the minorities as well. Therefore making Putonghua
the teaching language in schools will benefit the economic, social, and cul-
tural exchanges among ethnic groups. Putonghua teaching should be the
alternative in the future.
(3) The Constitution and the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy guarantee
the right of ethnic minorities to learn and use their mother tongue, but
also requires minorities to learn the Putonghua language commonly used
throughout the whole country. The educational system should guarantee
both rights and obligations. In practice, the education system and lan-
guage policy should be designed according to the local situations of dif-
ferent regions. The Tibetan language should be taught in early stages of
102 Ma Rong
primary schools for the students living in a Tibetan language environment.

Meanwhile, Putonghua-Tibetan bilingual teaching should be in practice
in early grades of primary school with a gradual increase in the hours and
percentage of Putonghua teaching in the senior grades of primary school.
Putonghua should gradually become the main teaching language at higher
grades, and upon graduation from high school, students should have mas-
tered both languages (Zhang 2007a: 113–14).
The first opinion that Zhang cites was common in the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region for decades prior to 2000. However, the fact remains that
unemployment of Uyghur university graduates has become one of the most
serious social issues facing Xinjiang. Because most Uyghur students studied in
Uyghur (using the Arab script) from primary school through university, their
Putonghua skill does not suffice for social communication, while their profes-
sional knowledge fails to meet the demands of the job market because they
cannot communicate with either business clients or colleagues. Moreover, it is
impossible to create Uyghur- or Tibetan-speaking economic circles for these
minority graduates within the national economy of China. The language rights
guaranteed by the Constitution and the emotional need of minority groups to
learn their mother tongue should be fully respected; however, minority students
who do not learn Putonghua face real difficulties in the employment market. If
minority students cannot successfully participate in the process of China’s mod-
ernization and remain locked outside mainstream society, their situation will
have a negative impact on the future development of their minority group.
The second opinion cited by Zhang Tingfang points to the need to master
Putonghua for the future development of minority groups and their participa-
tion in the process of China’s modernization. However, the idea of transition
from the current Tibetan-teaching model to a Putonghua-teaching model in a
short period of time is not pragmatic in the present situation. This suggestion is
not based on the reality of the language environment of most Tibetan students,
especially in rural areas where almost no Han residents live. Furthermore, many
Tibetans and Tibetan elites do not support such a change, which cannot succeed
without them and even might incite resistance among Tibetan students.
The third opinion cited by Zhang takes the first two opinions into considera-
tion and then tries to find a practical balance between them. It ultimately seeks
the gradual transition from “mother tongue-teaching” to “Putonghua-teaching.”
This method resembles the mainstream opinion in the USA as highlighted in the
“Bilingual Education Act,” where “bilingual education is a transition process to
help minority students from their mother tongue to English” (Y. Cai 2007: 209).
Whether the Tibetan people and their elite can ultimately accept this goal still
needs further discussion.
Considering the current language environment and practices in rural and
urban sectors of Tibet, the concern that Tibetan people have for the preservation
of their mother tongue, and the actual need for Putonghua ability in Tibet’s mod-
ernization process, the government may wish to design a system in which multi-
ple models of teaching languages co-exists in TAR schools as an alternative that
strives to meet all concerns. It might design and establish many different models
of schools at the same time, and then allow local schools to select the model that
best fits their local reality. Among the seven models introduced above, Models
I and V represent the two major patterns in language use, each adopting either
Putonghua or Tibetan as the dominant teaching language while offering the
other as a language subject. Models II and III sit between these two patterns,
teaching some courses in Tibetan and some in Putonghua. Model II is a varia-
tion of Model III, teaching more courses in Putonghua. Model IV offers a tran-
sition pattern due to the shortage of textbooks and teachers. Model IV should
be abandoned, because past practice demonstrates that a teaching-language gap
between primary and middle school levels causes a lot of problems. Model VI
applies to “minorities” with a very small population, while Model VII pertains
only to higher education. Therefore, if individual schools can choose one of the
three basic models (Model I, Model III, and Model V) freely, selecting the model
that best suits their local situation (language environment, parental willingness,
availability of qualified teachers, etc.), then parents and students will be able to
solve the problem of teaching language to their satisfaction.
University Enrollment of Tibetan Students
The language of university entrance examinations directly links to the issue of

medium of instruction in primary, middle, and high schools. In the TAR before
1995, schools conducted all subject exams (physics, chemistry, biology, history,
etc.) in Tibetan, with the exception of three language subjects (Putonghua,
104 Ma Rong
Tibetan, and English). The University Admission Office of the TAR prepared
the examination questions. After 1995, the examination questions for these sub-
jects were translated from the national standard questions, while the Ministry
of Education of China specially prepared Putonghua exam questions for ethnic
minority students (Local Annals of the Editing Committee of the TAR 2005:
202). Using the above formula, either the TAR government or the Ministry of
Education of China controls the difficulty of exams, and Tibetans receive many
advantages in order to encourage their admission into universities.5
The issue of Tibetan advancement to higher education is an important one.
On one hand, the language used in exams will determine the medium of instruc-
tion that parents and students choose, and thus affect their choice of primary
and middle schools. On the other hand, the disciplines and departments that
Tibetan students can choose at university will decide what kind of jobs they can
obtain after graduation, and determine whether Tibetan intellectuals can inte-
grate into the mainstream national elite in the future. Following the Civil Rights
movement in the USA during the 1960s, top universities in America (such as
Harvard and other Ivy League schools) recruited large numbers of students
from among minority groups. This eventually resulted in a black middle class
and the active participation of black elites in politics, finance, military, business,
academy, and foreign affairs. Today, they enjoy the prestige, social networks, and
relevant “social capital” that these top universities foster, and identify themselves
as national leaders rather than simply black elites. One result was the election of
America’s first black president in 2008. This development, therefore, has posi-
tively impacted racial and ethnic relations in the United States.
By comparison, very few Tibetan and Uyghur students can enter top univer-
sities in China. Minority students receive their university education chiefly at
“minority universities” or universities in minority regions (Ma 2012: 178–82).
Universities outside the TAR admitted only 336 TAR students; 227 of them
(67.6 percent) were Han in 2004 (Local Annals of the Editing Committee of
the TAR 2005: 216). Peking University, one of China’s top universities, recruited
only thirty-seven Tibetan undergraduate students (0.19 percent of the total),
thirteen master’s degree candidates (0.06 percent) and four PhD candidates
(0.06 percent) between 2006 and 2010. During that period, Tsinghua University,
another top school, recruited only twenty-nine Tibetan undergraduates (0.15
percent), fifteen master’s degree candidates (0.1 percent) and two PhD candi-
dates (0.03 percent). It must be added that some Tibetan students at top univer-
sities came from Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces, not from the
TAR. When compared with the level of black recruitment in 2009 at Harvard
University (10.5 percent of total enrollment) or the University of Pennsylvania
(9.4 percent),6 the contrast is sharp and revealing. The question of how to sig-
nificantly increase the recruitment rate of minority students to top universities in
China and train them to become part of the Chinese national elite constitutes an
important strategic issue for the central government, the Ministry of Education,
and the presidents of leading universities in China.
Discussion
In the modern world, each country designs its language policies according to
their own national conditions. Some countries have a single national language,
such as the USA; some have several official languages, such as Switzerland;
others have an unofficial lingua franca like India. Alongside a general concern for
cultural diversity, the right of minority groups to maintain their mother tongue
has received greater attention in the past couple of decades. However, if a minor-
ity group does not learn the language of mainstream society—especially those
groups that remain relatively less developed in terms of industrialization due to
historical reasons—their members will be unable to participate in national edu-
cation, economy, and social development. In most cases, these groups will be
marginalized in all aspects. Trapped at the bottom of the social structure, with
almost no access to social mobility to improve their status, ethnic conflicts will
become inevitable.
Bilingual education provides the major channel through which minority
groups can integrate into the mainstream of social, economic, and cultural activ-
ity in a modern civil society. Minority elites (community leaders and intellec-
tuals alike) need to recognize the importance of learning a common language,
which will bring them long-term benefit and promote the equality and pros-
perity of all citizens. Conversely, mainstream society should be more open to
minority members and try its best to help them to join the national elite. That
is why we need to rethink both the positive and negative consequences of the
106 Ma Rong
parallel schooling system, which separates Han and minority students and
excludes minority students from top universities in China. Under China’s current
segregated educational system, a Tibetan, Uyghur, or Mongol person has little
hope of becoming a top leader in China. When minority group members rose
to top leadership in the USA, India, and Vietnam (Black, Sikh, and Tai respec-
tively), ethnic relations in these nations greatly improved in many aspects, and
the identification of minorities as national citizens strengthened.
There are many ways to protect the languages and traditional cultures of
minorities. They could become a discipline for university study and research, or a
branch of national cultural affairs. In the meantime, the various consequences of
policies that establish minority languages as primary teaching languages or create
ethnic school segregation should be carefully examined and analyzed. Every
nation today faces intense international competition in the areas of finance,
trade, resource development, and science-technology, which makes building
national unity and internal integration important tasks for them. Thus, language
policy should serve the goals of cultural diversity and ethnic equality as well as
national integration. Unity and prosperity is the goal of any modern nation, and
therefore, leaders and the mainstream society should consider language policy
from a strategic perspective as part of the “nation-building” process.
5
Popularizing Basic Education in Tibet’s
Nomadic Regions
Gerard Postiglione, Ben Jiao, Li Xiaoliang, and Tsamla
China has joined a number of other nations including Kenya, Nigeria, Iran,
Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, and Mongolia, where nomadic groups have traditionally
been marginalized in education. This is especially true for nomadic groups that
possess a cultural heritage, including language and religion, which deviates from
the national mainstream and challenges state efforts to institutionalize basic edu-
cation (Bangsbo 2008). As education becomes a strategy in national integration
and development, non-indigenous education wins out over that which is tradi-
tionally passed down through nomadic households and communities. In short,
state schooling can affect nomadic lifestyles in fundamental ways.
The challenge of providing education to nomadic groups is complex and
often marred by a lack of understanding between the government provider of
basic education and the prospective nomadic user community (Kratli 2000).
Nomadic communities do not always share the state’s viewpoint on schooling.
The quest for fresh pastures for livestock is often misaligned with the rational
administration of government. From the nomadic point of view, the state’s
agenda for education may represent an attempt to change their way of life. This
can affect their participation in educational programs. Furthermore, state agents
often consider nomads to be backward and uncivilized (Postiglione 2008).
China has accelerated the initiatives to draw Tibetan nomads into educational
programs. However, these efforts and the view of the state about the delivery of
educational services can run counter to nomadic values. This may manifest itself
in a lack of harmonization between state intentions and the household perspec-
tives. In fact, this chapter demonstrates that despite the efforts to develop more
effective policies, and despite increases in enrollments, which these policies have
108 Gerard Postiglione, Ben Jiao, Li Xiaoliang, and Tsamla
brought, there is still a significant degree of mismatch between what the govern-
ment provides and what Tibetan nomads perceive as useful.
Education and Development for Nomads
The school, as an instrument of sedentarization, keeps nomads near settlements

if they want their children to be educated. Boarding schools introduce children
to the sedentary lifestyle with the expectation that the advantages will be clear.
Yet, boarding schools can also antagonize nomadic culture.
For Tibetan nomads to play a more diversified role in the economic develop-
ment of their region, basic education not only needs to socialize them into atti-
tudes and beliefs prescribed for citizens of the nation-state, but more specifically
to provide relevant knowledge and practices that resonate with their cultural tra-
ditions as well as make them successful and innovative livestock producers. Thus,
it is important for schooling to become culturally sensitive, regionally relevant,
and responsive to the realities of the nomadic community.
Nomadic communities in China, including in three of its ethnic autonomous
regions—Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR), Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region (XUAR), and Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)—dem-
onstrate some of the same challenges faced by nomadic communities in other
parts of the world. However, Tibet is special in that its nomadic regions are far
more remote than those in other parts of China and its nomads usually live at
altitudes ranging from four to six thousand meters. While progress has been
made in rural areas, basic education in nomadic areas of Tibet still lags behind.
This chapter examines how national development plans for education in remote,
mountainous, nomadic communities become confounded due to their dishar-
mony with nomadic lifestyles and perspectives. It is argued that while signifi-
cant resources are invested in educational facilities, including the importation of
qualified teachers and the elimination of school fees, nomadic communities con-
tinue to question the benefits of state schooling due to a perceived lack of both
relevance and useful skill transmission. A detailed outline of nomadic education
in Tibet is followed by data from fieldwork interviews and observations of two
nomadic prefectures and one nomadic county. Finally, the chapter returns to a
fundamental problem of nomadic education.
Popularizing Basic Education in Tibet’s Nomadic Regions 109
School Access in Tibet
Education in Tibet has followed a pattern of zigzag development, with obvious

improvements in recent years due to a heavy injection of capital funds. Despite
being behind the rest of the country and constrained by a tight political envi-
ronment, school access rates have steadily inched upward over the last twenty
years. Roughly half of Tibet’s school-age children were enrolled in 1989 (Tsaidan
1991). The enrollment rates increased to 85 percent in 2000 and further to 98.5
percent in 2008 (China Tibet News 2009). Albeit, there is a notable imbalance
of education provision that descends from urban to rural areas, and further to
where Tibet’s nomads live. Much can still be done to remove obstacles to educa-
tion for children in nomadic areas.
Tibet’s Nomadic Areas and Nomadic Life
Tibet is the most sparsely populated provincial territory in China. Population

in Tibet is overwhelmingly concentrated in the urban and agricultural areas in
the southern and eastern parts, leaving the vast nomadic regions in the west
and northwest with the lowest population density in the world. Among Tibet’s
seventy-three counties, fourteen are nomadic and twenty-four semi-nomadic.
Since Tibet’s statistics do not distinguish between rural and nomadic areas, we
have to roughly treat Nakchu and Ngari as nomadic regions. Actually, the county
of Damshung in Lhasa Prefecture, and the counties of Saka and Zhongba in
Shigatse Prefecture are nomadic counties. While people in Pachen, Biru, Sok,
and Lhari of Nakchu Prefecture, and most counties of Ngari Prefecture also grow
some crops, there are many pure nomadic towns in the counties of these two
prefectures.
Tibet’s nomads usually move between two encampments, which include a
main base that is used in winter, spring, and summer, and a fall encampment,
where the forage is nearly exhausted by late December. At that time, they return
to their main base with their sheep and goats, but their Yaks, being impervious to
the cold, are moved to locations higher up in the mountains where they can bite
off and pull up types of vegetation with their tongues and then return to the main
base in May (Goldstein and Beall 1990). Tibetan nomads are distinguished by
a complete economic dependence on livestock, particularly Yaks. A shortage of

herders is a perennial problem, and nomads form cooperatives, hire herders, and
have children begin herding at age eight or nine. Thus, households often have
to make a decision about school attendance based on costs and benefits to the
household. The following two sections provide a brief comparison of basic edu-
cation in the two major nomadic prefectures of Nakchu and Ngari (see Figures
5.1–3), after which our fieldwork focused on one specific nomadic county.
Members of the research team have traveled to nomadic prefectures several times
between 2003 and 2006 for oral history interviews with secondary school gradu-
ates and to examine results of various development projects. However, the main
focus of this chapter—an examination of efforts to popularize basic education
in Nyerong County—was based on fieldwork that took place in 2007 and 2010.
The first fieldwork took place in August 2007 and involved three of the authors’
visit, accompanied by a noted Tibetan scholar who was schooled in Nyerong, to
Figure 5.1 Location of the TAR in China

Figure 5.2 Location of Nakchu Prefecture in the TAR
Figure 5.3 Location of Ngari Prefecture in the TAR

two townships and the county seat. The authors attended school meetings and
held discussions with county officials, school teachers, school administrators,
parents, and students. The follow-up visit in 2010 included two of the authors
who continued to conduct interviews while school was in session and also gath-
ered published reports useful for tracing the background and development of
education in Nyerong over several decades.
Basic Education in Two Nomadic Prefectures
Basic Education in Nakchu
Nakchu’s first primary school was set up in 1956 with a few dozen students
(XZZZQZ 2005). By 1965, there were nine public (government-run) primary
schools and 110 private (community-run) primary schools (Tsaidan 1991). The
Nakchu Prefecture Middle School was set up in 1974 and was ranked as one of
the four key middle schools by Tibet’s Education Bureau, though its status was
annulled in 1971 (XZZZQZ 2005). The Prefecture Education Board compiled
what is known as the Laboring textbook for nomadic primary schools in 1999,
and vocational training classes, focusing on instruction in practical and produc-
tive life skills, were run in all primary and middle schools (Wang 2000).
Basic Education in Ngari
Ngari’s first primary school was established in 1953 (Tsaidan 1991). In 1965,
there were 28 public-and community-run primary schools with 43 staff and
890 students. Also that year, twelve new community-run primary schools were
set up (General Office of TAR People’s Government 2002). In 1972, during
the Cultural Revolution, 90 percent of the townships had primary schools and
a middle school began to admit students for courses in Tibetan, Chinese, and
Politics. Renamed as Ngari Prefecture Technical Secondary and Middle School
in 1975, it soon opened labs for Physics, Chemistry, and Biology and in 1979
resumed its previous name (Tsaidan 1991). Gar County Middle School opened
in 1976 (XZZZQZ 2005), with a 45.7 percent enrollment rate in 1978 (General
Office of TAR People’s Government 2002). Nagri Middle School added a senior
middle-school class in 1985. Yet, by the early 1980s, reform and consolidation
meant Ngari retained only ten schools, with Middle schools that were housed
in primary schools shut down, and many teaching points closed following the
principle of one school per county.
Comparing School Access in Nakchu and Ngari
The enrollment rate for the TAR in 2000 was 85.8 percent (see Table 5.1). The
enrollment rates in both Nakchu and Ngari lagged far behind Lhasa and even fell
far behind the rural areas (XZZZQZ 2005).
Table 5.1 Average enrollment rate (%) of TAR prefectures (2000)

Lhasa Lhokar Nyingchi Chamdo Shigatse Ngari Nakchu
97 96 94.6 85.2 69 64 64
Source: XZZZQZ 2005.
Six- and Nine-Year Compulsory Education across Nomadic Prefectures

and Counties
In March of 1993, Tibet’s Fourth Education Work Conference was held concern-
ing the reform and development of basic education. It set targets for 2000 to pop-
ularize three-year compulsory education in nomadic areas, six years in rural areas
and nine years in major urban areas (Zhou 2002). Yet, as noted in Table 5.2, both
Ngari and Nakchu Prefectures continue to lag behind other regions of the TAR
in this push for compulsory education.
Key Aspects of Education in the Two Nomadic Prefectures
System Differentiation
Tibet’s system of education for nomads is relatively bare-boned. Only primary

education and secondary education are available in nomadic areas. Preschool
education and vocational education are dysfunctional and special education
is a blank slate. Vocational education was initially provided in Nakchu in 1997

(Workgroup of TAR Education Department 2000), but lacked teachers and was
unable to meet the needs of economic and societal development. In Ngari, no
provision for vocational education existed until 2000 (Kagyu 2001). Without
vocational education, those who failed to gain access to education beyond
basic education returned home with no skills or viable means to acquire a non-
nomadic type of work. Preschool education is even unavailable in the county
seats of both Nakchu and Ngari. Finally, without education for children with
special needs, physically challenged children go without basic education. The
core system of basic education that does exist faces a number of challenges with
respect to increased access as outlined below, challenges that hinge on a change
to sedentary life style.
Table 5.2 Number of counties by prefecture that popularized six-year compulsory edu-
cation (6YCE) and nine-year compulsory education (9YCE) by 2000 and 2005
Number of 6YCE 9YCE
Prefecture
counties 2000 2005 2000 2005
Lhasa 8* 8 8 2 8
Lhoka 12 12 12 0 12
Nyingchi 7 5 7 0 5
Chamdo 11 3 11 0 4
Shigatse 18 7 18 0 11
Ngari 7 2 4** 0 0
Nakchu 11 0 8 0 0
Total 74 37 (50%) 68 (91.9%) 2 (2.7%) 40 (54.1%)
* Including Chengguan district
** By the end of 2006, only Getse County of Ngari Prefecture had not popularized six-
year compulsory education.
Sources: TAR Educational Supervision Committee 2006a; 2006b.
Note: Lhasa is advantaged due to its special status as the capital city. Lhoka, though
rural, is close to Lhasa and gifted by that geographical proximity. Shigatse, Nyingchi and
Chamdo are second-tier areas with large rural communities. The last tier includes Ngari
and Nakchu, both nomadic areas, where the popularization of basic education lags far
behind.
Household Choices
Despite the pressure to bring Tibet in line with national indicators of school
access, the government has yet to fully convince nomadic parents of the unques-
tionable advantages of the kind of schooling that is being provided. Our research
reveals that to avoid schooling their children, many parents resort to a number
of tactics. These include declaring their children disabled, asking their children
to malinger or take many days of sick leave, or deliberately violating school rules
and regulations. They also find ways to make schools reject their children, by sup-
porting their children’s truancy from school, sending their children to do house-
work for urban families (especially Lhasa families), or obtaining student records
from foreign township schools to create the false impression that their children
are enrolled in other places. These cases also exist in non-nomadic rural areas
where we have conducted fieldwork. However, the tactics are far more pervasive
in nomadic areas. These parent responses occur in reaction to the crude efforts to
institutionalize basic education, efforts that often ignore the special characteris-
tics of nomadic populations. One of the most influential initiatives for nomadic
areas has been the establishment of a system of impressively endowed boarding
schools as part of the state’s arsenal of sedentarization strategies.
Natural Environment
The nomadic areas of Nakchu and Ngari average at least 4,500 meters above
the sea level, and hypoxia is more common there than in other parts of Tibet.
Moreover, the population density in these two vast regions is as low as 0.62
people per square kilometer. Under such harsh conditions, a primary school is
expected to serve nomadic communities living as far as 150 kilometers away, and
a secondary school needs to accommodate students from even farther communi-
ties (TASS 2004: 254). Adverse natural environments pose considerable chal-
lenges for nomadic schools to attract and sustain both students and teachers.
Labor
Labor demands in rural and nomadic areas affect school access differently. A
year in rural Tibet can be divided into an idle season and a busy farming season
of planting and harvesting since over 94.5 percent of the land is above 3,000
meters. Yet nomadic life in Tibet tends to be intense and busy throughout a year.
In summer, each household has individuals especially assigned for grazing. To
get a better outcome all livestock are divided into herds of cows, bulls, calves
and sheep, and herded separately. Therefore, school-age children are a key labor
resource. Tradition dictates that when adults herd yaks in remote areas, chil-
dren under 15 years old are assigned shepherding close to home (Shao 2004;
Wangdui 2005). In winter, their chores include daily milking, yogurt and dairy
products processing, and shearing, demands that make nomads more reluctant
to send their children to schools.
Household Economy
Nomads still live in a more or less closed, self-sufficient system in which survival
and status depend to a great extent on the household unit for labor. They are as
yet not convinced of the potential economic value of school education. When
external forces push their children into schools, nomads see that large numbers
of students cannot further their studies and eventually return home without
useful knowledge or skills that are either locally relevant for livestock produc-
tion or the basis for making a fortune elsewhere. When nomads calculate the low
probability that schooling will lead their children to become a cadre or county
official, school attendance becomes a questionable investment.
School Finance
Nomadic areas rely mainly on the TAR government’s financial allocation. The
self-financing ability of Tibet is limited to only 8 percent (TASS 2004: 253–54)
and schools at township and county levels get limited funds for school devel-
opment. There are few NGOs or international development agencies at work
in nomadic areas. There is a national scheme that pairs China’s provinces with
Tibet’s prefectures for aid, including education. However, nomadic prefectures
are paired with the poorer provinces. Hebei and Shaanxi are the correspond-
ing donor provinces of Ngari Prefecture and donate less to Ngari than would
Guangdong, Shandong, or Shanghai, for example.
Historical Factors
Though nomads received little formal education when monasteries monopolized

education, and the TAR government introduced a system of grants for nomad
children to attend school, the Cultural Revolution period deeply affected monas-
tery education and dampened attitudes toward school education. The dispersed
and reconsolidated school reforms and the exam-oriented system that followed
also shaped attitudes toward education in nomadic areas. In fact, support for
schooling is still relatively weak in nomadic areas and many children fail to make
it beyond primary school. By 2002, Nyima County of Nakchu Prefecture had yet
to graduate a college student and most cadres were recruited from other parts
of Tibet. Therefore, many nomads drew the seemingly logical conclusion that
school study is of little value and the notion that schooling can change one’s life
seemed a foreign notion.
Even as households begin to prosper, many still perceive a lack of relevance of
schooling to nomadic life and resist the tendency of schooling to communicate
to children a marginalized view of nomadic life within the paradigm of moderni-
zation and national development. With centuries of nomadic life behind them,
and little evidence that school knowledge could improve the life to which they
are accustomed, the interests of children seemed best served by tradition. Animal
husbandry with a stable outcome independent from the outside naturally seems
a well-worn but valuable path (Lu and Palden 2007).
Language and Culture
The language of instruction is Tibetan in nomadic primary schools, but it dra-

matically switches to Chinese when nomad students enter secondary schools.
The sway of Chinese language shifts with the unbalanced distribution of a small
Han Chinese population within Tibet. Half of the Han people are concentrated
in Chengguan District of Lhasa, and the rest in the seats of the prefecture, with a
sprinkling in some county governments. There are virtually no Han Chinese in
nomadic areas (Zhou 2003: 69). In urban areas such as Chengguan District of
Lhasa, bilingual or Chinese teaching has been developing rapidly, but the same is
not the case for most other areas.
The essence of education is cultural inheritance and innovation. Tibetan

Buddhism is the carrier and foremost symbol of traditional culture, and includes
rich knowledge of philosophy, ethics, law, language, science, and art. Historical,
political, geographic, and developmental factors make it difficult to fully under-
stand and study the nature of traditional culture, except from a religious perspec-
tive, which has made it difficult to transfer the essence of traditional culture into
the state school system.
It is obvious that modern school education is not embraced by local people
(Du 2006). This is a prevalent problem throughout Tibet. School courses diverge
from Tibetan culture in modes of thinking, emotional expression, and value ori-
entation, and they also include elements that do not exist in traditional culture,
which makes school knowledge hard to understand and learn. For instance,
in the textbook, there are sentences like “Guilin’s landscape is the greatest.”
However, in the mind of Tibetan children, great landscape means holy mountains
and sacred lakes. There are clear differences in the meaning of the concept land-
scape, and the textbook on this point is confusing and unacceptable for Tibetan
children (Du 2006).
Education Bureau Perspectives
It is not unusual within the development discourse in China to consider nomads

as culturally backward. However, official positions are often contradictory in
viewing them as backward yet agile in finding ways to have their children receive
a superior education as in the case of this regional education ministry statement
that:
Nomads nowadays do not send their kids to schools. The underlying
reason is not that nomads are backward or refuse to entertain progress. Our
schools cannot attract them, the schools are not managed well, the environ-
ment may not always be secure, or kids cannot learn much. Nomads thus do
not feel strongly about sending their children to our schools. This point is
illuminated in the fact that many nomads send their kids to the county seat
schools and ask their relatives to care for them (Wangdui 2005).
While recognizing that schools hold little attraction for nomadic parents, the
problem is not identified by the education bureau as being associated with
relevance, only quality. The ministry quoted above erroneously concludes that
nomads would send their children to county seat schools if local schools were
of higher quality. However, it does make clear that nomads are able to astutely
calculate the probability of receiving benefits from different educational loca-
tions. Meanwhile, little attention is given to the reality that school learning fails
to connect closely enough with nomads’ lives and is separated from the demands
of economic and social development in nomadic areas. Nomads complain that:
Students returning to their hometown live like a fish out of water in four
ways: they are unwilling to be nomads, afraid of hardships and not mentally
adapted; they are not used to hard life at home; they have no special skills
and sit around all day; they lack the nomadic laboring habits and are not
physically adapted (Droka 2003).
Schools, even in nomadic areas, are exam-oriented with few activities that sig-
nificantly engage children and sustain their vitality. Efforts to engage them in
entertainment, sports, and extra-curricular life are less than effective. Courses
remain recondite and beyond students’ receptivity. In addition, the difficulty is
undoubtedly increased with the switch of medium of instruction from primary
schools to secondary schools.
Perspective on Nomadic Education in Nyerong County of Nakchu

Prefecture
Nyerong County is located in the South Chamtang Plateau Basin area of North
Tibet, an area of undulating hills and ravines, with an average altitude of 4,750
meters. The research team visited Nyerong County on two occasions. We first
arrived early in the fall season and discovered that the annual average tempera-
ture is –2.1°C and dips to a low point of –38°C in winter. There is no absolute
frost-free period and there are about one hundred snow or rain days per year,
with an annual rainfall of 400 millimeters. It is a typical plateau sub-frigid zone
with semi-arid monsoon climate. The county occupies an area of 21,400 square
kilometers and includes 10 townships and 158 administrative villages. The popu-
lation is 30,973, of which 29,328 are nomadic. The county has an almost total
reliance on animal husbandry that includes yaks, sheep, goats, and horses. The
livestock products include wool, butter, cattle cashmere, hides, beef, and mutton.
In 2006, Nyerong declared that it had achieved the goal of six-year compul-
sory education. Since 2009, it has declared that it has achieved nine-year com-
pulsory education. The official enrollment rate was declared to be 98 percent
with a stability rate of 97.3 percent. There are eight junior primary schools, six
complete primary schools, and no village schools or teaching points. All village
schools were consolidated to the township level, which is supposed to facilitate
the management of schools and the propaganda campaign for six-year compul-
sory education.
Nyerong’s County Seat Primary School
Through interviews, we learned that so-called modern schooling began in March

of 1962 with the Nyerong County Primary School, a community-run school
opened by the Longse Buddhist Monastery in Dazhong town (Dazhong town is
no longer locatable on maps, but judging from the position of Longse Monastery,
the town should be seated at Nyerong town or nearby). The school occupied
only 30 square meters with two teachers and twenty-three students. Only
Tibetan, Chinese and Mathematics were taught. The school moved to the county
seat in April 1964. It became a public school in 1965 with four full-time teachers,
a cook, forty-five students and ten classrooms. In 1989, it became a complete
primary school with six grades, ten teachers, 120 students and an enrollment rate
of around 11 percent. In 1998, it had a three-storied teaching building with eight-
een classrooms and a multi-purpose cafeteria.
In 2003, the school was rebuilt in the new east district of the county seat
with an investment of 7.5 million yuan by its donor, the Shenhua Group, a state-
owned enterprise, and became the Nyerong County Shenhua Primary School
with a two-storied teaching building, a two-storied office building, two student
dormitories, a cafeteria and five teacher housing units. It expanded again in 2004
from having only five to six hundred pupils housed in the old campus to over one
thousand in the new campus. Sixteen new teachers were assigned there in 2007,
all of which had attended dislocated boarding schools in Chinese cities and then
graduated from the Minzu College of Hebei Province Normal University. There
are sixty-four teachers in total and all are considered qualified in terms of their
earned credentials.
Township Primary Schools in Nyerong
During our visit, there were seven township-level junior primary schools (grades
one through three) and six township-level complete primary schools (grades
one through six) in Nyerong. Before the Consolidating School System policy,
there were also teaching points in some villages, for instance one located in an
open area between Nyima Township and Seching Township, and another at
Guoshong, Damjang Township (Guoshong is no longer locatable on a map). The
teaching points had fewer students but were more locally positioned. However,
decisions were made that placed resource efficiency ahead of other concerns.
The official viewpoint discouraged further building of teaching point classrooms,
teacher accommodations and cafeterias. Moreover, the implementation of the
“Three Guarantees” policy complicated the allocation of resources to teaching
points. The view conveyed to us by the education authorities was that funds were
easier to distribute to the township level schools, and that the “Three Guarantees”
funding could not offset the general price increases in the county. Consolidating
resources at the township level placed the schools in a better negotiating position
with local business. Therefore, as a response to the Consolidating School System
policy, these two teaching points were eliminated in 2003.
The teaching points were also unable to retain good teachers. Affected by the
emergent market economy and modern lifestyle, few outstanding young teach-
ers were willing to teach in conditions that were provided at the teaching points.
While some teachers were allocated to work there after their graduation accord-
ing to the job-allocation system sustained from the days of the planned economy,
they left no stone unturned to gain a transfer to more centrally located schools
where conditions were more favorable. While parents, students, and leaders
in charge of the teaching points were disgruntled with this practice, they also
expressed compassion, tolerance, and understanding toward teacher perspec-
tives. Thus, teaching points were consolidated into schools at the township seats
and viewed by authorities as a better arrangement with an improvement in infra-
structure for six-year compulsory education.
The case of locally based teaching points illustrates the complex issue sur-
rounding sedentarization. While the teaching points are closer to home and
ensconced in nomadic areas, the township seat schools require primary school
aged students to board for long periods away from home. Moreover, if they excel
at primary school, they will be given a free place at a secondary school in one of
the many Tibet schools located in urban areas across central China. By the time
they complete their secondary school education, their ties to nomadic life will
have worn quite thin.
Secondary Education in Nyerong
The provision of junior secondary education in Nyerong is quite recent. The

middle school was authorized in September 1998 but its classes were conducted
at the primary school campus until October 2004 when it moved to its own
campus. It boasts that from 2005 through 2007, the average academic scores of its
graduates occupied the second or third position in the prefecture, and twenty-six
of its twenty-eight graduates in 2006 were enrolled in the Lhasa-Nakchu Senior
Secondary School,1 the other two graduates in Lhasa Senior Secondary School.
Its staff includes seventeen teachers, three workers, and a guard. Earlier, only
half of the teachers had bachelor degrees. However, by 2007, almost all teachers
held a bachelor degree and were considered fully qualified. The average age of its
teachers is about thirty, which is relatively young for a secondary school.
When we visited Nyerong Middle School during our fieldwork, we saw its
physics, biology, and chemistry laboratories, moral education center, library,
distance education center, and computer center. The computer center had forty-
four computers, a good number for its target of not more than 200 students. The
wall slogan “Bring Northern Tibet Children into the Information World’’ is eye-
catching, and undoubtedly inspirational to students. The library housed 11,246
books. The plan was to have 1,600 students by 2009 when achieving nine-year
compulsory education. From the slogans on the walls of the distance educa-
tion center—“Utilize Remote Resources, and Promote Education for All-round
Development” and “Sharing Information through Remote Resources”—an
apparent faith in modern high-tech education is catching on. Photos of school
activities and pictures of celebrities were posted in the moral education center.
In the office of the school head, we found the Eight Requirements for Teachers,
listed as operational ability, morality, working style, discipline, dedication, and
caring for students, among other traits. It stressed that teachers should serve as
students’ models, and not only teach knowledge but also educate about civi-
lized behavior. At the teaching building, the ethos was clearly stated as “Stress
on Morality, Erudition, Earnest Study, and Reaching Perfection,” and its motto
declared “Be Brave in Innovation, Establish Morality, and Cultivate People.”
Preschool Education and Vocational Education in Nyerong
Education in Nakchu developed in an uneven way. For instance, some preschool

education is available in the prefectural seat, and in two semi-nomadic counties
Sok and Biru. Nyerong had hopes to set up a kindergarten, but as an education
bureau official told us: “. . . preschool education will be run in accordance with
education development trends,” which we took to mean that it would still take
some time to institute.
We were surprised to find that Nyerong was without a vocational education
center, though one is planned for the county middle school. What existed was
only a driving course in cooperation with Nakchu Prefecture and training in
traditional Tibetan carpentry, painting, and masonry was being arranged with
nomads organizing their own construction teams to pass on skills. Though
Nyerong declared six vocational training majors, it lacked funds, equipment, and
qualified teachers. Among the priority skill areas identified as vocational majors
are automobile driving, motorcycle repair, carpentry, painting, and masonry.
While we heard the statements that nomads were more likely to get interested in
and benefit from vocational education, it was difficult to see much correspond-
ing development in providing programs and facilities.
Assessing Policies and Practices in Nyerong
Management Capacity
We enquired about lessons learned from the experience of institutionalizing basic

education and were told quite a bit about the upgrading of management capacity.
There is an annual education work conference, and a government-school dual
responsibility system for education work was established. A working group for
the Two Basics (literacy and basic education) was set up, with the county party
secretary as its head and county governor as deputy head. An education supervi-
sion committee was also set up and headed by the director of the county people’s
congress. A reward and punishment system was instituted in which education
work was linked to the assessing and appointment of cadres with responsibility
specified for every unit and individual. An official from the County Education
Bureau told us, “When we were implementing six-year compulsory education,
our slogan was to overcome any difficulty with the forces of the whole county.
This meant mobilizing specific individuals at village, township, county and pre-
fecture levels. If the dropout rate in a certain township was high, certain official
would have to take responsibility, and the township government itself would be
responsible for its ineffective education work, the school for poor school man-
agement.” While there was a tone of commitment to implementation, we heard
little about the actual content of the learning, curriculum, and education. The
focus was on enrollment and attendance targets for standard schooling and on
assigning blame for high dropout rates.
There were rules and regulations to standardize and achieve quality in school
teaching and management. For example, schools were required to conduct more
active forms of teaching and make full use of modern information technology
where possible, to advance their teaching methods, and improve operational
efficiency and education quality. Teachers were encouraged to continue study,
improve their teaching capacity and academic levels, and reform their overall
knowledge structure through self-study and correspondence courses. Through a
Management and Exchange System for Teachers, promulgated in 2004 and 2006, a
competition mechanism was implemented to mobilize teachers to participate in
exchanges with teachers in the county so as to improve education quality.
Educational Finance and Investment
A slogan on the wall of the county primary school reads: “Under no circum-
stances can children live hard lives or we provide poor education.” This aims
to drive home the message that investment in education is strategic. Twenty
percent of annual revenue goes into education. In addition, education is also
financed through other channels, such as compulsory education funds from
the higher-level government, contributions from donor units and individuals.
Nakchu’s education board invested 8,511,000 yuan, Shenhua Group put forward
7,655,400 yuan, and individuals donated 764,000 yuan. The majority has been
used for school construction and expansion, purchasing teaching equipment,
and financing poor students.
Three Guarantees
The Three Guarantees, a special preferential policy for Tibet’s rural and nomadic
areas, aims to accelerate basic education by providing improved conditions
(free food, accommodations, and clothing) to school-age children. The Three
Guarantees outlay is consolidated in the county and materials are purchased
through government procurement. Since the conditions of life for students at
school have been relatively secured with little cost to households, nomadic fami-
lies find it easier to send their children to school.
Retaining Teachers
Teachers become a key element in the issue of sedentarization since Nyerong

itself has not been able to recruit its main teaching force within the county. Even
after recruitment, teacher retention becomes a key challenge. The county is basi-
cally divided into the southern section (adjacent to Nakchu County) and north-
ern section (neighboring Qinghai Province). On account of the relatively bitter
conditions in the northern sector, in-service retention of teachers is more dif-
ficult. The northern sector gets strategic development priority from government.
Yongchu Township is located at the north end of Nyerong. Despite having the
bitterest natural conditions, its infrastructure is better than that of other county
primary schools, with greenhouses for vegetables, which ensure that teachers
working there have fresh vegetables.
Infrastructure Improvements
Aside from retaining teachers, another challenge to sedentarization has been the
inferior resources and infrastructure of the schools in comparison to those in
urban and rural areas. With a growing amount of financial investment from the
government and its paired donor unit, Nyerong has been making large efforts
to improve school infrastructure and teaching facilities. On our way to Nyerong
for field research, we visited the Nyima Township Primary School, and found a
newly build school, a regulation size concrete basketball court under construc-
tion, distance education equipment being installed with a telecommunication
dish on the school roof, and a mini-library of only one bookshelf (located in
the distance education center of the school). We also visited Seching Township
Primary School and saw a recently completed basketball court and distance edu-
cation facilities.
Further Challenges for Nyerong
On our field trips to Nyerong, nomads repeated the concerns that we had heard
from nomads elsewhere. If all children attend school, there will be a household
labor shortage. While this hampers school attendance, many parents continue
to question the significance of school knowledge for their children’s future.
The official view is correct that a low level of basic education in Nyerong will
hinder future economic and societal development. Restated, misrecognition of
reasons for the unattractiveness of state schooling to nomads can also lead to a
lost opportunity, a failed responsibility, and an inefficient deployment of valu-
able resources.
Limited Prospects after Graduation
Few graduates get government guaranteed jobs, which is one factor that blocks
parents from sending children to schools. Graduates from Nyerong Middle
School are increasingly admitted to senior high schools. While there have
been no more than seventy graduates each year, the figure jumped in 2009 to
an enrollment of 1,600 with 500 graduates. The job prospects for such a large
number of students are inadequate. Nyerong’s Vocational Education Center is
not functional, and so most graduates from middle school will return to their
nomadic life. Those who attend high school, university, and eventually get a high
status job will be in the minority. Few students learn skills to make a living, which
strikes a further blow to any initiatives for the education of nomadic children.
Negative views about education are not surprising. For example, an official from
the county education bureau and the schoolmaster of the middle school con-
firmed that many high school graduates failed to attend university and had to
return to their hometown where there were few local area opportunities for non-
pastoral work. Faced with this situation, some of these students became restless,
took money from their parents and wanted to return to more urban areas. It has
increasingly become clear that young people not attending school feel at ease
herding livestock, but those who have completed school often do not feel the
same way.
Language of Instruction and Related Issues
Chinese is used as the instruction language in secondary schools in Nyerong.

There are few if any teachers adequately trained to teach Chinese. The guiding
mantra is that those who can speak Chinese can teach it. Students who excelled
in primary schools see their academic performance drop off sharply due to the
change of instruction language from Tibetan to Chinese. The pressure they feel
leads to fear and anxiety about study with the likely consequence that they will
drop out after only the first year of secondary schooling. As we learned from
speaking with students even at the county seat primary school, these students
are ill-prepared for Chinese medium study. We engaged two students of Grade 4
or 5 in simple Chinese conversation and found that not only were they unable to
follow the Chinese adequately, but they were also unable to communicate well in
Tibetan.2 This is not only a language issue, but also concerns the transmission of
Tibetan culture.
Obstacles to Curricula Reform
With the introduction of the new curricula reform, textbooks become a bit more
sensitive to the culture and knowledge of Tibetan communities. For instance,
the Shoton Festival has been included in the new Chinese textbook along with a
comparison of the customs between the Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year)
and the Tibetan Losar (the Tibetan New Year). Yet, the Shoton Festival, which
is celebrated by eating yogurt and watching Tibetan operas, is a Lhasa-centered
event, and distant from nomadic life in Nyerong. Moreover, the new curricula
reform highlights developing students’ innovative skills and heuristic thinking
styles, and promotes student-centered learning. Yet, teachers serving in Nyerong
schools have received very limited training and are barely prepared to adopt
the new teaching methods. They are concerned that student-centered teaching
methods hinder them from completing the curricula, and might pull down their
teaching performance and career promotion. After all, teachers are still evaluated
on the basis of their students’ examination scores, and a new evaluation system
has yet to be designed to fit in with the new curricula reform.
Conclusion
A critical challenge in nomadic areas like Nyerong County is to ensure the

harmony between government providers of educational services and how
nomadic families receive these programs. Provision of relevant education
remains an issue in Tibet’s nomadic areas. Unlike the case of nomadic commu-
nities of other developing nations where state resources are hamstrung by eco-
nomic constraints, the Chinese government not only provides free education in
nomadic areas but has been willing to inject as much capital as necessary in order
to prove that the rapidly rising indicators of school access, albeit only in the basic
education sector, reflect successful policies for realizing the UNESCO-defined
goal of “Education for All” (EFA).
However, the case of Tibet in China raises a question about the viability of
popularizing basic education through a program that consolidates resources
by expanding the system of boarding schools in nomadic areas and importing
teachers from more developed regions. Yet, those educational indicators are not
matched by an acknowledgement on the part of nomadic households that the
education provided is relevant and useful enough to harmonize with nomadic
life, or to provide a sufficient path toward non-pastoral jobs for school leavers.
The result is often a singular focus on enrollment indicators that are not always
reliably calculated, but always skillfully presented.
To alleviate the current situation, several conditions need to be present,
including household involvement in the management and planning of schools,
school-based curriculum development that increases relevance to nomadic life
and to the larger world, bilingual education standards that lead to a more seam-
less transition from primary to secondary education, and sufficiently attractive
programs of vocational education and training that can also prepare youth for
non-pastoral employment, all of which would be part of an innovative commu-
nity development paradigm that not only avoids marginalization but also brings
Tibetan nomads into the larger world.
6
The Practice of Ethnic Policy in
Education
Xinjiang’s Bilingual Education System
Zuliyati Simayi
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Communist
Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government has sought to consistently
guarantee the equal social and political rights of all ethnic groups in the country
while adhering to the principle of ethnic equality and unity. The CPC has estab-
lished a relatively complete system of ethnic policies that are premised on a
unified, multiethnic nation with diverse cultures. The system seeks to implement
full equality among ethnic groups, uphold and improve regional ethnic auton-
omy, accelerate the economic and social development of ethnic minorities and
minority areas, protect and develop ethnic minority cultures, and foster cadres
and talented people from amongst the ethnic minorities (Information Office of
the State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2009). Within this policy
framework, the state adopts policy “adjustments” to encourage the development
of minority areas and ethnic minorities. On one hand, the state offers all kinds
of assistance and support to ethnic minority groups to enhance their options for
self-development; on the other hand, the state lowers the threshold for receiv-
ers of non-compulsory education in order to increase their pursuit of personal
and professional development. Over time, these policy “adjustments” or “prefer-
ences” have long-term and positive effects on the development of education in
minority areas.
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (hereinafter, Xinjiang or XUAR)
is an important dwelling area for many ethnic minorities of western China.
Therefore, the principles of equality, priority and special guarantees, as stipu-
lated in the state’s ethnic policies, are also embodied in local educational poli-
cies and regulations in the XUAR. Xinjiang has adopted an educational system
132 Zuliyati Simayi
that is different from other parts of the country and realizes its educational mod-
ernization by developing diverse ethnic languages and cultures. By making full
use of preferential policies and financial supports granted by the central gov-
ernment, the XUAR seeks to bring minority students into a unified national
and modern education system, while building national unity among all ethnic
groups. This chapter explores the development of bilingual minority education
in Xinjiang and the implementation of these policies since 1950, as well as linger-
ing problems.
The Demographic and Cultural Characteristics of Xinjiang
Xinjiang is a diverse multiethnic region, with the Uyghur and Han people con-
stituting the majority of its population. Based on the 2007 statistics, Xinjiang is
home to all of China’s 56 ethnic groups and has a population of 20.95 million,
of which ethnic minorities account for 60.7 percent of the total population (see
Table 6.1).
From a geographical perspective, we can see that the Uyghur population is
mainly concentrated in the areas of Hotan, Kashgar, Aksu, and Kizilsu in south-
ern Xinjiang and also in the Turpan area of eastern Xinjiang. The Kirgiz popula-
tion is concentrated in Kizilsu Kirgaz Autonomous Prefecture, and the Kazakh
are mainly located in Altay, Tacheng, and Ili. Of Xinjiang’s fifteen prefectures,
eight have Han populations that account for more than half of the total popula-
tion. In contrast, the three prefectures of Hotan, Kashgar, and Kizilsu in southern
Xinjiang have Han populations that are less than 10 percent of the local popula-
tion. This unique spatial pattern of population distribution has helped to deter-
mine the adoption of different school types in Xinjiang.
In terms of language, the thirteen main ethnic groups in Xinjiang now use
ten different languages that belong to three language families, while many ethnic
groups in Xinjiang (such as the Uyghur, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Mongolian, Xibo, and
Russian) have their own standard and traditional scripts. In terms of economic
livelihood, ethnic groups in Xinjiang are engaged in a wide variety of activities,
including farming, nomadic pastoralism, handicraft, trading and business, and
many other pursuits that are common throughout China. Most ethnic groups
in Xinjiang are Muslims, but other faiths are also practiced such as Tibetan
The Practice of Ethnic Policy in Education 133
Table 6.1 Population distribution (%) of XUAR by prefecture/city and their ethnic
structure (2007)
Total
Location Uyghur Han Kazak Hui Kirgiz Mongol Xibo
population
XUAR 20,951,900 46.1 39.3 7.08 4.5 0.87 0.85 0.2
Urumqi City 2,312,964 12.3 73 2.74 10.28 0.07 0.39 0.21
Kalamay City 267,174 15.2 75.5 4 2.38 0.05 0.86 0.32
Turpan
600,610 70.5 22.9 0.04 6.29 0 0.03 0.01
Prefecture
Hami
546,169 20.2 66.7 9.09 2.97 0 0.45 0.03
Prefecture
Changji Hui
Autonomous 1,353,742 4.6 74.4 9.79 9.66 0.01 0.48 0.04
Prefecture
Ili Kazak
Autonomous 4,342,166 16.2 43.8 26.24 8.49 0.45 1.67 0.78
Prefecture
Ili Kazak
Subordinate 2,702,333 24.1 39.1 20.78 10.12 0.63 1.22 1.18
County
Tacheng
994,776 4.1 57.9 25.04 7.27 0.21 3.38 0.19
Prefecture
Altay
645,057 1.5 42.1 50.94 3.54 0.03 0.91 0.02
Prefecture
Bortala
Mongol
472,918 12.7 67.3 9.44 3.77 0.02 5.89 0.09
Autonomous
Prefecture
Bayin’gholin
Mongol
1,224,080 32.7 57.5 0.1 5.06 0.02 3.99 0.02
Autonomous
Prefecture
Aksu
2,203,077 78 20.7 0.01 0.67 0.43 0.03 0
Prefecture
Kizilsu Kirghiz
Autonomous 500,007 63.5 7.4 0.03 0.12 27.81 0.01 0.01
Prefecture
Kashgar
3,694,349 91.1 7.3 0.01 0.16 0.17 0.01 0
Prefecture
Hotan
1,883,894 96.3 3.5 0 0.08 0.04 0.01 0
Prefecture
Shihezi City 636,090 1.2 94.5 0.62 2.58 0.01 0.13 0.03
Alar City 166,544 4 93.2 0.12 0.6 0.02 0.16 0.01
Tumushuke
147,804 63 36.2 0 0.4 0 0.02 0
City
Wujiaqu City 72,782 0.1 96.7 0.14 2.03 0.01 0.27 0.02
Source: Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook 2008: 74–79.
134 Zuliyati Simayi
Buddhism among the Mongols and Eastern Orthodox among the Russians. This
rich diversity of religions, cultures, and written and spoken languages has helped
to determine the policy of adopting different languages as the mode of instruc-
tion in Xinjiang.
Minority Education in Xinjiang
The cultural and educational aspects of China’s ethnic policy, such as spoken and
written language policies and the educational system, will indirectly or directly
exert influences on the development of all aspects of society, especially intereth-
nic relations in Xinjiang. Therefore, in order to accelerate the development of all
ethnic groups and realize the integrity of all ethnic groups, we should attach great
importance to minority education in Xinjiang. Among policies related to minor-
ity education, those that touch upon native-language teaching, Putonghua (普
通話, Mandarin) language teaching, school types, and preferential policies will
have a profound effect on the protection of minority languages and cultures, the
development of minority education, and the fostering of harmonious interethnic
relationships, and thus require carefully researched policy implementation.
Native-Language Teaching
According to the Constitution of the PRC “the organs of self-government of

ethnic autonomous regions shall independently arrange their local education
system . . .” In addition, the “Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy” stipulates that:
Schools (classes and grades) and other institutions of education where
most of the students come from ethnic minorities shall, whenever pos-
sible, use textbooks in their own languages and use their languages as
the medium of instruction. Classes for the teaching of Chinese (the Han
language) shall, where possible, be opened for junior or senior grades of
primary schools to popularize Putonghua (the common speech based on
Beijing pronunciation) and standard Chinese characters (cited in Jin and
Wang 2002: 609–13).
From the 1950s up until the 1990s, schools at all levels were classified into
Han and minority schools and were taught using their respective languages in
order to ensure that each ethnic group had the right to use and develop their
own written and spoken language. Classes in joint minority-Han schools were
also classified, divided, and taught this way. Due to the diversity of languages in
Xinjiang, schools at different levels adopt different teaching languages as follows:
(1) In addition to Uyghurs, the Uyghur language is employed by the Uzbek,
Tartar, and Tajik people; (2) the seven languages of Putonghua, Uyghur, Kazakh,
Kirgiz, Mongolian, Xibo, and Russian have been adopted as teaching languages
in primary and secondary schools (see Table 6.2). Since the 1950s, the govern-
ment has mobilized professionals and experts to compile textbooks and teaching
materials in the six languages of Putonghua, Uyghur, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Mongolian,
and Xibo for primary and middle schools, adding Russian in 1998; (3) the three
languages of Putonghua, Uyghur, and Kazakh are the main teaching languages
at the tertiary level in Xinjiang. To support minority language teaching, the
Xinjiang Education Press has compiled a large number of textbooks and reading
materials in minority languages. By 2005, the Press had published over thirty
thousand different textbooks and teaching materials in various ethnic languages,
accounting for 42 percent of their total publications (Wu 2008).
Yet, since the early 1990s, the policy of adopting different teaching languages
has changed. Beginning in 1992, where conditions were appropriate, the regional
government established bilingual experimental classes in primary and middle
schools, which meant that some subjects such as mathematics and physics are
now taught in Putonghua while the rest are taught in native languages. Since
2004, the regional government has attempted to promote a new mode of instruc-
tion where all subjects, except native-language subjects, are taught in Putonghua.
The effects of these changes to the medium of instruction in Xinjiang schools
will be discussed below.
Primary and middle school enrollment statistics from 2009 (see Table 6.2)
reveal that 32.21 percent of students are still taught in ethnic languages, which
account for more than half of the 60.53 percent minority enrollment. There are
several reasons for this. First, student from the Hui, Manchu, and Daur ethnic
minorities use Han Chinese and are taught in Putonghua.1 Second, some minor-
ity school-age students attend Han schools.2 Third, some minority students
receive bilingual education in minority schools.3 Fourth, minority students in
high school (which is not compulsory) who are taught in their native language
account for 29.7 percent, much lower than that in primary and middle schools,
136 Zuliyati Simayi
Table 6.2 Student enrollment at middle and primary schools in the XUAR by teaching
languages (%), 2009
Middle school
Primary
Teaching language Junior middle
Total High school school
school
Putonghua 786,101 492,701 293,400 983,631
% 54.41 47.94 70.34 49.83
Uyghur 572,805 475,999 96,806 891,977
% 39.65 46.32 23.21 45.19
Kazak 71,004 49,588 21,416 87,297
% 4.91 4.83 5.13 4.42
Mongolian 4,134 2,303 1,831 3,157
% 0.29 0.22 0.44 0.16
Xibo 928 599 0.16 904
% 0.06 0.06 0.08 0.05
Kirgiz 9,864 6,507 3,357 6,924
% 0.68 0.63 0.8 0.35
Bilingual education 114,948 93,806 21,142 351,992
% 7.96 9.13 5.07 17.83
Total 1,444,836 1,027,697 417,139 1,973,890
Source: Xinjiang Autonomous Region Bureau of Education 2009.
Note: Minority students at primary and middle schools who are taught in their native
languages account for 60.53% of all minority students while those who receive bilingual
education comprise only 13.66%.
because the admission rate of minority students in high schools constitutes just
38.53 percent of total enrollments.4 The fact remains, however, that minority
students in the XUAR are still mostly taught in their native languages, although
some of them have begun to receive bilingual education in primary and middle
schools.5
Putonghua Teaching
As early as in the 1930s, minority schools in Xinjiang offered Chinese-language

courses to students. In 1936, the Education Bureau of Xinjiang stipulated that
Chinese language subjects should be offered in minority middle schools. At

an early stage of the PRC’s development, a legal regulation made Chinese a
compulsory subject in minority middle schools. On August 25, 1950, the new
government issued Some Regulations on Education Reform in Xinjiang which
compelled middle school students to choose a second language. Uyghur stu-
dents could choose either Chinese or Russian while Han Chinese students could
choose either Russian or Uyghur. On August 25, 1960, the Education Bureau
of the XUAR distributed a notice, entitled On Improving Chinese Teaching in
Minority Middle Schools, which stated that Chinese should be a core subject in
minority middle schools and that the teaching objective of schools should be
to improve the ability of minority students in listening, reading, speaking, and
writing Chinese through primary and middle school learning (Xinjiang History:
Education 2006: 602).
Since 1977, the XUAR has offered Putonghua subjects from Grade 4 and
required all minority high school students to achieve basic Chinese fluency. To
reach the goal of fluency the government also mandated graduating students
entering institutions of higher education to attend Chinese language classes in
order to achieve excellence in both Chinese and their native language. If minor-
ity students could not meet these requirements, they would have to enroll in one
or two pre-college Chinese language courses. In some colleges and universities,
however, some basic or introductory subjects and even professional courses are
taught in native ethnic languages, whenever conditions are appropriate.
In 1978, in order to carry out national-level policies, the Education Bureau of
the XUAR issued a document entitled Opinions on Student Enrollment. It speci-
fied that minority students with excellent command of Putonghua could take the
university entrance examination (gaokao 高考) in Putonghua, while minority
students who were taught in their native languages could take the exam in their
own language. Furthermore, it instructs the regional government to provide
all ethnic students with test papers in different minority languages, including
Uyghur, Kazakh, and Mongolian. In addition, minority students, if they wished,
could also attend an extra examination in Putonghua whose scores would not
be counted. But since 1982, all minority students must now taking an exam in
Putonghua, and the scores are now counted towards their final scores.
138 Zuliyati Simayi
As a result of these reforms, the XUAR has pioneered a system of coexisting

teaching modes, which includes: (1) Putonghua subjects from Grade 4 in minor-
ity primary schools; (2) experimental bilingual classes in minority primary and
middle schools; (3) minority students attending Han schools; and (4) an oral
Putonghua subjects from Grade 1 in minority primary schools. At the same
time, all professional and tertiary courses, with the exception of subjects in
minority languages and literature, should be taught in Putonghua. As the most
widely spoken language in China, Putonghua plays an important role in pro-
moting interethnic communication. Thus, as Putonghua’s influence has grown,
its instruction in minority primary and middle schools in Xinjiang has grown
increasingly popular. Language learning has become a core part of education,
and researchers in minority education place importance in determining the best
methods for strengthening Putonghua teaching in minority schools in order to
enhance communication between Han Chinese and the minorities.
School Types
Most ethnic minorities in Xinjiang are spread across vast areas while some live in
small, concentrated communities. The spatial pattern of population distribution
is very noticeable. In areas chiefly inhabited by ethnic minorities, mother tongues
make up the dominant language, while in areas populated by Han Chinese, such
as Ürümqi, Shihezi, Kuitun, and Kalamayi, Putonghua has become a power-
ful lingua franca. In ethnically mixed cities, such as Hami, Yining, Korla, and
Tacheng, Putonghua and the native language of the largest minority group have
become mutually useful tools for communication. Due to this complex demo-
graphic and spatial environment, the XUAR has set up three different types of
schools: Minority Schools, Han Schools, and Joint Minority-Han Schools.
The earliest type of primary and middle schools in Xinjiang organized around
a single ethnic group. Schools of this type included Uyghur, Han, Kazakh,
Mongolian, Kirgiz, and Xibo schools. By December 2009, Xinjiang had 2,433
Uyghur primary schools and 596 middle schools; 150 Kazakh primary schools
and 109 middle schools; six Mongolian primary schools and six middle schools;
one Xibo primary school and one middle school; and fifty-six Kirgiz primary
schools and five middle schools (Xinjiang Autonomous Region Bureau of
Statistics 2009).
Joint Minority-Han Schools refer to schools that accept both Han Chinese
and minority students. In 1960, the XUAR government stressed that the merger
or union of Han and minority schools should be taken into account as part of
education reform (Xinjiang Autonomous Region Bureau of Education 2007).
The government thus began setting up experimental schools in 1960. The
number of these schools increased to 165 by 1981, but subsequently fell to 44
after the XUAR government re-instituted the separation of minority and Han
schools. By the late 1990s, however, Joint Minority-Han Schools were once again
encouraged. They grew to 778 throughout Xinjiang in 2009, with all schools in
Ürümqi falling into this category (Xinjiang Region Bureau of Education 2009)
(see Table 6.3).
Today, the XUAR government promotes the joint minority-Han school
model throughout the region. Needless to say, the merger of minority and Han
schools serves a very important agenda for eliminating ethnic segregation and
incorporating minority education into the national educational system. Putting
minority and Han students in the same environment breaks down barriers and
contributes to their mutual communication and understanding. But as Linda
Tsung’s chapter (this volume) also notes, some challenges remain. In many joint
schools, Han and minority students study in the same school but work separately
in minority, Han, and bilingual classes. Minority and bilingual classes consist
mainly of minority students while Han classes consist chiefly of Han students.
Some have argued that this practice cannot eliminate the basic separation of
ethnic groups in China (see Ma, this volume), and I will discuss this problem
further below.
Preferential Policies
The central government has adopted a series of preferential policies for minor-
ity students that seek to promote the development of minority education and
incorporate minority education into a modern, national education system. On
September 9, 1987, the XUAR government, in Decision to Solve Some Important
Questions Remaining in Education, declared that the development of minor-
ity education should be the focus of local education, especially the develop-
ment of minority education in remote, poverty-stricken, and pastoral areas. The
140
Table 6.3 Number and type of schools in the XUAR at different levels, 2009
Han Uyghur Kazak Mongol Xibo Kirgiz Han-minority
Schools Total schools schools schools schools schools schools joint schools
Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % Number %
Middle school 1,610 547 33.9 590 39.6 109 6.77 6 0.37 1 0.06 5 0.31 351 21.8
Junior middle
1,197 366 30.6 478 39.9 84 7.02 5 0.42 0 4 0.33 259 21.64
school
High school 413 181 43.8 112 27.1 25 6.05 1 0.24 1 0.24 1 0.24 92 22.28
Primary school 2,651 574 15.7 2,433 66.6 150 4.11 6 0.16 1 0.03 56 1.53 427 11.7
Source: Xinjiang Autonomous Region Bureau of Education 2009.
Zuliyati Simayi
document also claimed that special measures should be taken to accelerate the
development of minority education, and called for improvements in the quality
of minority education, minority teacher training, and teaching materials. In
another document, Opinions on the Implementation of China’s Education Reform
and Development Outline, the government reiterated the importance of these
preferential policies.
Among these preferential policies, the policy that offers minority students
extra points (jiafen 加分) on their university entrance exams has had influence on
minority education. This policy evolved through three main stages. First, during
the 1950s, the government called for “appropriate preferential treatment” in the
enrollment of minority students. Second, the policy of “minimum admission
score, fixed acceptance rate” was adopted and “Xinjiang Classes” (Xinjiangban 新
疆班) were set up in the country’s top universities. In 1976, the government reg-
ulated that when recruiting college students, provincial universities in Xinjiang
should ensure that minority students account for at least 60 percent of their
enrollments, while inland universities should strive to make sure that minority
students account for no less than 50 percent. The policy has continued to play a
very important role in developing higher education for minorities. At the same
time, regional governments issued other preferential policies, which included
separate exam papers for minority students, and the establishment of minimum
admission scores. Third and finally in 1980, Xinjiang adopted a policy of adding
points to the exam scores of minority students. Since 1986, minority students
who take the university entrance examination in Putonghua receive one hundred
additional points if their parents are both either Uyghur, Kazakh, Mongolian,
Kirgiz, Tajik, Xibo, Uzbek, Tatar, Yugur, Tibetan, or Russian; thirty points if only
one parent is a member of these ethnic groups; and ten points if they themselves
are Hui. Furthermore, minority students who take the entrance examination in
Putonghua will also receive priority enrollment when they compete with Han
students who have the same score, and special care is taken with minority stu-
dents from small populations, like the Xibo or Yugur, to ensure that the enroll-
ment of their community at the tertiary level is proportional to their percentage
of the general population.
Since 1990, as the quality of minority education has improved, some uni-
versity entrance exam subjects have been required to adopt a unified, national
142 Zuliyati Simayi
procedure set by the Ministry of Education. The number of extra points for
Xinjiang minorities was adjusted, granting an additional seventy points for
dual-parent minority students and ten points for sole-parent minority students.
In 1999, three subjects (including math, physics, and chemistry) required a
minimum score for minority candidates, and these cut-off scores increased over
time. The policy for college enrollment changed again in 2004, and members of
the eleven minority groups mentioned above who took the exam in Putonghua
earned an additional fifty points if they had two minority parents, and ten points
if they had one. At the same time, minority candidates were permitted to take the
entrance examinations in either Putonghua (minkaohan 民考漢) or their own
ethnic language (minkaomin 民考民) (see Table 6.5 in Appendix 1).
Over the past six decades, the implementation of preferential policies has
greatly promoted the development of minority education and thus trained a large
numbers of talented minority graduates in all fields. According to the statistics
provided by the Xinjiang Bureau of Education in 2009, the number of minority
students in Xinjiang tertiary institutions is 89,538, which comprises 37.5 percent
of the total enrollment, and the number of minority postgraduate students is
1,705 or 14.65 percent of total enrollments. In addition, while college admission
requirements for minority students are much lower than they are for Han stu-
dents, the gap between them has narrowed (see Table 6.6 in Appendix 2).
Although these preferential policies have played a positive role in the devel-
opment of minority education, their negative effects cannot be ignored. First,
minority students tend to have fewer employment opportunities than Han
students after graduation due to the lack of corresponding preferential policies
in the job market. Second, any adjustments in preferential policies are difficult
because minority students have grown dependent on them. Third, Han students
regard these preferential policies for minority students as a kind of reverse dis-
crimination. Fourth, preferential policies whose sole beneficiaries are minority
students actually highlight their differences from the mainstream group and thus
enhance their ethnic identification. Finally, preferential policies with ethnic iden-
tity as the sole criterion for allocating educational resources will lead to severe
competition among different ethnic groups.
Bilingual Education in the XUAR
Education is closely related to language. Language serves as a tool for human

communication and a carrier of group culture. The transmission of culture
cannot be done without a language. Only through language can the knowledge,
experiences, emotions, and ways of understanding the world be passed on to
future generations. Thus, language, in its spoken and written forms, lies at the
core of education. For minority education some of the most important questions
revolve around the best language for instruction: What kind of languages should
be used to teach students? How can scientific and cultural knowledge be effi-
ciently taught to learners?
The Function of Languages
Language plays a vital role in our daily lives. Languages not only serve an impor-
tant communicative function but also function as repositories of past and future
cultural and scientific knowledge. Language also has an important educational
function. Here languages serve as vehicles for educational content. An individual
can learn a language through education and then employ it as a tool for master-
ing new social and scientific knowledge.
In China, past classic works and new scientific texts are published in Chinese.
Furthermore, the latest literary and scientific works from other countries are
published in Chinese translation. Today even minority intellectuals publish
their research results in Chinese-language books so that they can gain recogni-
tion from other Chinese scholars. As Ma Rong (2003a) has argued: “In China, if
scholars of any ethnic group can master Putonghua, they can acquire at least 99
percent of all resources available. Grasping the resources means a lot for individ-
ual development and the development of research fields.” In other words, knowl-
edge of Putonghua helps scholars in China gain an incomparable advantage in
acquiring the most advanced resources and knowledge. Consequently, Chinese
minorities should not only learn their own languages and cultures, but also the
advanced scientific and cultural knowledge available through Putonghua.
In a word, language has various functions, but this does not mean that each
function carries the same importance in social life. The key question for minority
144 Zuliyati Simayi
education remains: What languages will enable minority students to successfully

pass along their traditional cultures while effectively acquiring the most advanced
scientific and cultural knowledge? The solution to this question is closely related
to the function of language.
Defining Bilingual Education
Since the 1950s, the Chinese government has pioneered a policy of bilingual edu-
cation for ethnic minorities. This policy still plays a dominant role in strengthen-
ing communication among all ethnic groups, developing minority education,
and incorporating minority education into a unified, modern, and national edu-
cation system. What is bilingual education? In short, it is an educational policy
implemented by social majorities for social minorities, and varies according to
local situations and the different countries in which it is practiced. Thus, the
definition of bilingual education also varies. The International Encyclopedia of
Education defines “bilingual education” as “a teaching mode in which two lan-
guages are used to teach non-linguistic subjects.” In Education and Bilingualism,
the Canadian educationalist William Francis Mackay and his Spanish colleague
Miguel Siguan define bilingual education as an educational system in which
two languages are used as teaching languages, and where one of the languages is
often not the students’ first language (Mackey and Siguan 1989: 1). The Chinese
scholar Wang Binhua (2003: 4) argues that bilingual education has both narrow
and broad meanings. Broadly speaking, bilingual education points to the use of
two languages in school teaching, while more narrowly, it refers to the use of a
second language or a foreign language to teaching some subjects, such as math,
physics, chemistry, and history.
Based on these definitions, we can see that bilingual education involves the
entire process of teaching in two languages, namely, the first language and the
second language, and consequently covers both teaching modes. Thus, we can
define bilingual education as a teaching mode in which two languages are used to
teach. It comprises both language and non-linguistic subjects that are taught in
two languages. As a united, multiethnic country, China sees bilingual education
as an important educational policy tool for implementing the state’s ethnic poli-
cies and developing education in minority areas. Because of regional differences,
the Chinese government has adopted different modes of bilingual education

in different minority areas. In what follows, I discuss bilingual education in the
XUAR.
The Development of Bilingual Education in Xinjiang since 1950
Since 1950, the regional government of Xinjiang has adopted three different
teaching modes, which are characterized by different teaching languages, in
order to implement bilingual education. Based on the timing of their implemen-
tation, the first mode is called the “traditional bilingual teaching mode,” while
the second and the third modes belong to the “new bilingual teaching mode.”
In “Mode 1 Bilingualism,” priority is given to teaching in the minority lan-
guage with a Putonghua subject taught four to five hours per week. This tradi-
tional bilingual teaching mode has been carried out in Xinjiang for over sixty
year. As previously discussed, seven languages are still used as teaching languages
in Xinjiang primary and middle schools, and this mode remains the leading
model for bilingual education for ethnic minorities in Xinjiang schools. In 2009,
a total of 1,182,054 minority students, or 56.33 percent of total minority enroll-
ment in Xinjiang, studied using the “Mode 1” bilingual model (statistics from
Xinjiang Regional Bureau of Education 2009).
Despite its successful uptake, Mode 1 bilingual teaching has its problems.
First, limited instruction in Putonghua and the lack of a Putonghua language
environment for minority students living in minority-dominated communi-
ties means that Putonghua competency remains basic. This in turn affects the
employment opportunities of minority graduates. Second, few textbooks and
reference books about the natural sciences and related subjects—such as math,
physics, and chemistry—are written and published in minority languages. This
effects the knowledge capacity of both minority students and teachers, and thus
prevents minority students from performing as well as their Han peers on the
university entrance examinations (especially in the sciences, see Appendix 2).
Most commonly, minority minkaohan students score best on the exams, a trend
that is also evident in the results of high school entrance exams in Ürümqi (see
Table 6.4).
146 Zuliyati Simayi
Table 6.4 Student performance on the high school entrance exam, Ürümqi (2003–2005)
Math Physics Chemistry
Exam
Year Average Pass rate Average Pass rate Average Pass rate
language
score (%) score (%) score (%)
Putonghua 98.7 68.5 58.4 64.4 44.7 –
Uyghur
74.7 35.8 49.3 42.5 39.5 65.7
2003 language
Kazak
53.1 13.3 36 12.8 32.9 44.3
language
Putonghua 89.7 56.1 61.7 71.9 44 77.9
Minority
40.3 4.6 39.1 20.1 33.3 45.6
2004 languages
Bilingual
66.7 26.9 53.2 52.1 39.6 67.9
language
Putonghua 85.1 – 60.3 – 41.4 –
2005 Minority
42.6 – 43.3 – 30.8 –
languages
Source: Ma Rong 2008: 2.
Because of these issues, many minority parents (especially in urban areas)

select experimental bilingual classes (Mode 2, see below) or Han school for their
children. However, in some counties in southern Xinjiang, there are few experi-
mental or Han schools, which forces parents and students to vigorously compete
with Han students for a place in them. In fact, minority students in Shufu and
Shache counties in Kashgar Prefecture surpass Han students in Han schools.
In “Mode 2 Bilingualism,” Putonghua is used for science subjects while all
other subjects are taught in native ethnic languages. This mode occurs in mainly
rural areas where few Han exist. Given the poor performance of minority stu-
dents in science-related courses, the XUAR government established experimen-
tal bilingual classes in 1992 with the hope that it could alter this trend. Here
some science subjects, such as math, physics, chemistry, and later English, are
taught using Putonghua as the mode of instruction while the rest of the sub-
jects are taught in native ethnic languages. In 2001, in Decision to Strengthen the
Reform and Development of Basic Education, the XUAR government stressed that
bilingual experimental classes should be increased and minority schools in cities
above the county level should gradually adopt this bilingual mode. Since then,
this mode has been widely adopted, although resource limitations hinder its
growth in some areas.
In “Mode 3 Bilingualism,” all subjects are taught in Putonghua in minor-
ity schools and supplemented by teaching in minority languages. The subjects
offered are the same as those offered in normal Han schools, but the teaching of
minority languages begins in primary school, Grades 1–3. Beginning in 2004,
and on the basis of the successful experimental bilingual classes set up in primary
and middle schools, Ürümqi schools began to employ this new bilingual mode
of teaching. This mode has been adopted as the best model for encouraging bilin-
gual education in Xinjiang, as explained by the CPC Committee of the XUAR in
its 2004 Decision to Vigorously Promote Bilingual Teaching.
In developing bilingual education in minority schools, we must adhere to the
principle of flexibility and the suitability of local conditions and act step-by-step
in accordance with local plans. In some developed cities with higher education
levels, including Ürümqi, Karamay, Shehezi, Kuitun, Changji, Korla, and Hami,
the government required that all minority primary schools offer Putonghua
beginning in Grade 1 and realize “Mode 3 Bilingualism” by 2010. In other cities
above the county level in northern and eastern Xinjiang and in urban centers
in southern Xinjiang, all minority primary schools should offer Putonghua in
Grade 1 and adopt “Mode 3 Bilingualism” by 2013. In other towns and rural
areas in Xinjiang, all minority primary schools must offer Putonghua beginning
in Grade 1 before 2010 and then realize “Mode 3 Bilingualism” by 2016.
Institutions of higher education and vocational secondary schools with the
appropriate conditions should have begun teaching all general, disciplinary, and
specialized subjects in Putonghua in 2004. The aim here is to gradually elimi-
nate all preparatory Putonghua language courses for minority college students.
In addition, the XUAR government has stipulated that native language courses
must still be offered for minkaohan students. The new bilingual teaching mode
seeks to strengthen Putonghua proficiency among minority students and reduce
the gaps in education levels between Han and minority students. Although tra-
ditional modes of bilingualism still play a leading role in minority school teach-
ing, since 2004 the adoption of “Mode 3 Bilingualism” has quickened. In 2006,
only 114,869 minority students in Xinjiang learned by means of this new mode
148 Zuliyati Simayi
of bilingual education, a number that constituted 4.95 percent of all minority

enrollments. By 2009, however, this number increased to 466,940 students and
22.30 percent of total enrollments (Xinjiang Uyghur Region Bureau of Statistics
2009).
Compared with the traditional mode, which failed to cultivate bilingual
fluency for minority students, the new approach to bilingual teaching has a
more practical focus. Against this background, the XUAR government decided
to adopt this new bilingual teaching mode in order to assist minority students
seeking more knowledge and job opportunities who believed that they could
gain a better future by grasping the nation’s mainstream language and values.
However, three potential concerns should be pointed out: first, the quickened
pace of bilingual education might affect quality and outcomes due to the great
shortage of qualified bilingual teachers and a lack of an effective quality supervi-
sion system; second, cultural barriers might still prevent minority students from
improving their academic prospects; and third, increased Putonghua learning
may have negative effects on minority students’ understanding of their own cul-
tures and values. These problems remain important concerns for many minority
scholars.
Bilingualism in Practice: Xinjiang’s “Bifurcated Educational System”
The implementation of a new mode of bilingual education will definitely help

overcome the drawbacks in the traditional system of bilingual education. This
new mode will certainly help boost the Putonghua competency of minority stu-
dents while helping them to more fully integrate into mainstream society and
pursue their careers at a national level. However, it is important to note that some
problems still exist with both the new and traditional modes of bilingual educa-
tion. Chiefly, ethnic minority and Han students are still taught in two separate
systems, even when the modes of instruction, textbooks, and methodologies
are the same. The two separate systems defined on the basis of ethnic identity,
minority versus Han, create what I term as a “bifurcated education system.”
Since the development of educational policies in Xinjiang during the 1950s,
two parallel schooling systems have been created to cater to minority and Han
students. Based on these arrangements, ethnic minority students are taught in
their own indigenous languages and enrolled in ethnic minority schools while
Han students are taught in Putonghua in Han schools. Consequently, from the
countryside to the cities, a bifurcated education system has taken shape from
the primary through tertiary levels with ethnic identity as the sole dividing line.
At all stages of the educational process, ethnic minority and Han students both
inhabit and learn within their own systems. This bifurcated education system in
Xinjiang not only involves different languages of instruction for students but also
has created a system-derived set of double standards for college and university
admission, different administrative classes, different testing systems, and segre-
gated campuses and campus life, to name a few of the problems.
The bifurcated education system differs from the issue of bilingual education,
because the former is an educational system based on ethnic identity and the
latter is a teaching pedagogy that can be applied across ethnic groups. Bilingual
education is the embodiment of ethnic policies in the educational system that,
once established, immediately acquired an independent nature. During the early
1990s, changes began to take place, and ethnic minorities were no longer taught
solely in their native languages. Instead, they began to be taught additionally in
Putonghua. Gradually, a new bilingual mode of instruction took shape. Minority
students are taught in both Putonghua and their mother tongues. In spite of these
observed and important changes, much remains the same. For ethnic minority
and Han students, separate classes, double standards for college admission, and
different testing systems still exist. Thus, although the medium of instruction has
become largely homogenized, the bifurcated education system still exists, even
in schools that admit both Han and ethnic minority students. Despite the fact
that minority students are expected to enjoy the same educational environment
and be taught the same level of knowledge and skills, minority and Han students
are still taught in two parallel yet equally competitive educational systems.
Some Reflections on Xinjiang’s Bifurcated Education System
Through the promotion of a modern education, the Chinese government is

responsible for offering all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity, the equal oppor-
tunity to receive a quality education. In Xinjiang, this effort promotes the
region’s economic and social development while guaranteeing the cultural
150 Zuliyati Simayi
self-determination of all ethnic groups and their interethnic integration. Towards

this end, the Chinese government has implemented an education policy in
Xinjiang that differs from other parts in the country. Here, a bilingual education
system is in place in Xinjiang schools, in which ethnic minorities are guaranteed
the right to receive education. This system has helped to increase the educational
levels of ethnic minorities, develop the local economy, and promote interethnic
integration.
Despite these achievements, a few problems must be heeded. First, the bifur-
cated educational system, discussed above, has resulted in the separation of Han
and ethnic minority students in their educational environment, which will cer-
tainly lead to separation in other fields. Second, the ultimate social objective of
promoting modern education in Xinjiang is to cultivate a sense of shared national
identity among the ethnic minorities. The implicit logic of the bifurcated educa-
tion system conflicts with this important social objective, however. The system
defines and classifies minority students according to their ethnicity and marks
them as intrinsically different from their Han peers. This educational system
sharpens the differences between ethnic minorities and the Han mainstream in
all aspects and makes ethnicity the key marker for determining acceptance of
preferential educational treatment. Finally, by using ethnicity as the sole crite-
rion for gaining access to certain social benefits like education, the bifurcated
educational system in Xinjiang is likely to strengthen ethnic rather than national
identification to the determent of a single, shared sense of national belonging or
civic being.
Conclusion
Since the 1950s, improving minority educational levels and promoting the eco-
nomic and social development of Xinjiang has been an important objective for
China in implementing its ethnic policies. To a certain extent, this objective has
been realized. But problems remain. Chiefly, treating ethnic minorities as special
groups creates a bifurcated education system that helps to fix ethnic differences.
This system creates barriers between minorities and Han students and helps to
strengthen ethnic-specific identities. The basic starting point of China’s ethnic
policies should be to enhance a sense of shared national identity among all ethnic
groups, thus promoting national integration and generating national harmony.

As a result, one of the essential objectives of school education should be not only
the cultivation of respect for each ethnic group’s history, culture, and guaranteed
development, but also the transformation of ethnic minorities into equal citizens
of the state. The best way to realize this objective is to promote a mode of multi-
cultural education that targets justice and equality at the individual rather than
group level.
Appendix 1
Table 6.5 Policy-awarded points for minority students in the XUAR

Policy-
Year awarded Recipients of policy-awarded points
points
10 Hui students
1985 30 “Single minority” Minkaohan students
100 “Double minority” Minkaohan students
10 Hui students
80 “Single minority” Minkaohan students
“Double minority” Minkaohan students who apply to
1987 100
universities in inner China
“Double minority” Minkaohan students who apply to
150
universities in Xinjiang
Hui, “Single minority” Minkaohan, students who
College have received the award for excellence, children of
Entrance 2002 10
oveseas Chinese and returned Chinese, children of
Examination those killed in military service
The top six contestants in key athletic competitions,
20 those who apply to the autonomous region’s major
2003 institutions with most vigorous working conditions
“Double minority” Minkaohan students, “Double
70
minority” Hankaomin students
2004 10 Hui students, “Single minority” Minkaohan students
The top six contestants in key athletic competitions,
those who apply to the autonomous region’s major
2005 20
institutions with most vigorous working conditions,
and reserve military force
(Table 6.5 to be continued)
152 Zuliyati Simayi
(Table 6.5 continued)

Policy-
Year awarded Recipients of policy-awarded points
points
“Double minority” Minkaohan students, “Double
2006 50
minority” Hankaomin students
Hui, Taiwanese, children of those killed in military
service, children of overseas Chinese and returned
10
Chinese, children of returned Chinese scholars with
2002
High School foreign academic degrees
Entrance Minkaohan students (key high schools and programs
70
Examination with admission requirements)
(Ürümqi) Hui, Taiwanese, children of those killed in military
10 service, children of overseas Chinese and returned
2006
Chinese
50 Minkaohan students
Note: “Double minority” students are those students whose parents both belong to one
of the eleven protected minority groups: Uyghur, Kazakh, Mongolian, Kirgiz, Tajik, Xibo,
Uzbek, Tatar, Daur, Tibetan, and Russian, while “single minority” students are students
who have one Han parent and one that belongs to one of these protected minority groups.
Minkaohan students belong to one of the eleven minority groups and take the exams in
Chinese, while Hankaomin students are either Han or belong to one of the non-protected
minority groups and take the exams in a minority language.
Source: Li Xiaoxia 2009.
Appendix 2
Table 6.6 Required scores for admission to college/university in the XUAR, 1977–2009
Liberal Arts Sciences

Year Type of students Appendix
Key Average Specialist Key Average Specialist
Putonghua A65, B80, C65 A55, B70, C55
1977 Minority language A55, B65, C55 A35, B45, C30
Minkaohan 40 25
Putonghua 261 250
unified national
1978 Minority language 95 90
proposition
Minkaohan 140 90
Putonghua 256 232
Xinjiang
proposition
Minkaohan 140 90
Putonghua 330 277 360 300
Minority language 256 267 150 130 150
1980
Mongolian language 220 130
Minkaohan 150 130
Putonghua 320 340
Minkaohan 190 215


154

Putonghua 365 349 375 336
Minority language 320 367
1982
Minkaohan 170 150
Putonghua 425 412 440 405
Minority language 425 400 500 460
1983
Minkaohan 200 180
Putonghua 428 415 405 365
Minority language 320 295 350 300 unified national
proposition
1984
Mongolian language 171 172 for maths and
politics
Minkaohan 180 155
Putonghua 430 415 405 440 400 385
Minority language 317 297 290 288 260 252
1985
Minkaohan 205 116
Putonghua 450 440 430 470 450 425
1986
Minkaohan 195 210
Zuliyati Simayi


Putonghua 445 428 419 470 435 421
1987 Minority language 269 262 245 313 282 268
Putonghua 463 453 441 480 453 443
1988
Putonghua 467 452 443 498 474 453
1989
Putonghua 434 418 409 500 473 454
1990
Putonghua 456 444 434 499 473 454
1991
Putonghua 458 445 435 523 500 473
1992
Putonghua 440 430 420 482 458 443
Minkaohan Students selected based on performance
Putonghua 488 471 454 522 485 446
Minkaohan 343 340

156

Putonghua 489 475 468 502 465 445
Minkaohan 359 293
516 473
Putonghua 526 481 498 424
498 446
1996
Minkaohan 326 231
Putonghua 478 460 444 468 414 388
Minkaohan 326 260
Putonghua 464 434 404 484 432 404
Minkaohan Students selected based on performance
Putonghua 480 452 434 470 420 396
Lowest scores for
this category
1999
Minkaohan (includ-
442 397 363 404 353 329
ing scores)
Mongolian language Students selected based on performance and accounting for regional differences
Putonghua 464 434 390 478 422 388
2000
Mongolian language Students selected based on performance
Zuliyati Simayi
Minkaohan 376 286 300 260


Putonghua 468 436 344 486 436 344
2001 Minority language
Minkaohan
Putonghua 490 436 340 499 420 330
(lowest scores for
this category) –16 –16 –12 –18 –16 –12
2002
Mongolian language 316 300 240 359 255
(lowest scores for Not calculated
this category) –16 –12 –12 –16 –12
Minkaohan 456 398 270 400 340 200
Putonghua 538 484 437 320 522 447 397 300
Minority language 381 347 345 297 382 357 352 297
(lowest scores for
any subject ) –23 –23 –23 –20 –23 –23 –23 –20
2004 Different groups were selected by a cut-off based on performance. The qualifications for math were the same as in the
Mongolian language
minority language category.
Based
on Based on
Minkaohan 470 399 397 421 375 373
perfor- performance
mance
158

Putonghua 516 455 360 290 507 433 350 270
(lowest score for
2005 math) –25 –24 –23 –22 –27 –26 –25 –24
Different groups were selected by a cut-off based on performance. The qualifications for math were the same as in the
Mongolian language
Minkaohan 435 380 Based on performance 383 342 Based on performance
Putonghua 517 452 380 295 520 448 370 275
(lowest score for
2006 math) –26 –25 –24 –23 –29 –28 –26 –25
Mongolian language
Putonghua 520 457 380 295 518 452 375 290
(lowest scores for
2007 any subject) –26 –25 –24 (23) –30 –29 –27 –26
Mongolian language
Zuliyati Simayi


Putonghua 525 457 386 295 515 454 380 290
(lowest score for
2008 math) –27 –26 –25 –23 –31 –30 –28 –26
Mongolian language
Putonghua 499 446 386 295 480 426 380 290
Based on perfor- Based on perfor-
(lowest score for
mance (26) 376 (32) mance (29)
math) –28 –27 –24 –31 –27
2009
Mongolian language
Based on Based on
Minkaohan 414 382 290 423 403 285
performance performance
Sources: Data from 1977 to 2006 is from Li Xiaoxia 2009; and data from 2007 to 2009 is from www.tianshannet.com.
7
Trilingual Education and School
Practice in Xinjiang
Linda Tsung
Introduction
China comprises a highly multilingual and ethnically diverse population. All

of China’s fifty-five legally recognized minority nationalities possess their own
spoken languages, with the exception of the Hui, She, and Manchus who used
to speak their own languages but now mostly speak some form of Chinese. In
fact, many of China’s minority groups tend to be multilingual, speaking at least
128 different languages (Sun, Hu, and Huang 2007). In some of these minority
groups, people may be bilingual, trilingual, or they may speak a variety of differ-
ent languages, some of which are totally different from one another (Tsung 1999
and 2009).
The Constitution of the PRC grants minority nationalities the freedom to
use and preserve their native languages. An essential principle in China’s poli-
cies towards minorities states that people of all ethnic groups are equally guar-
anteed the use of their own languages in education as stated in Article 4 of the
Constitution (1952, 1982). Administrative autonomy has been a part of the gov-
ernment structure since PRC’s establishment, and a law that guarantees regional
autonomy for concentrated minority communities was adopted in the 1950s and
confirmed on May 31, 1984. As a result, bilingual education (that is, instruction
in both a minority language and Mandarin Chinese, or Putongua 普通話 as it
is known in China) has been the norm for a number of minority groups with
written languages since the 1950s. Minority languages have been used in teach-
ing, from national kindergarten to higher education, and support the cultural life
of the ethnic minorities. Furthermore, there is a diversity of bilingual educational
162 Linda Tsung
models in China, which reflects not only the diversity that exists among China’s
ethnic minorities but also the Party-state’s ambivalent attitude toward bilingual
education. This ambivalence highlights a belief that education in a minority lan-
guage is a transitional measure aimed at facilitating the mastery of Putonghua
(Stites 1999; Tsung 1999). In general, ethnic minorities in China face a choice
between either preserving their own languages and cultures or obtaining upward
social mobility through competency in Chinese (Zhou 2001).
Rapid economic growth in China since the end of the 1970s has led to an
increase in the importance of learning Chinese (that is, oral skill in Putonghua
and literacy in written Chinese) for minority students. Successful participation in
the mainstream economy is strongly related to mastery of Chinese, and therefore
minority students have developed a motivation and a positive attitude toward
educational success, economic benefits, and integration into mainstream society
through learning Putonghua and written Chinese. However, there is growing
evidence that the PRC’s language education policy has tended to work against
multilingual education and its main objective of national integration.
Multilingual Education Policy and Practice: Mother Tongue, Bilingual

and Trilingual
Early state policy in the PRC sought to legitimize and promote a multilingual
policy for ethnic minority learners. For example, the Constitution declares, “All
ethnic minority groups have freedom to develop their languages.” The revised
1982 version of the Constitution re-emphasized the rights of ethnic minority
groups with regards to language use, sociocultural development and regional
autonomy by claiming in Article 4 that:
All nationalities in the People’s Republic of China are equal. The state
protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and
upholds and develops the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assis-
tance among all of China’s nationalities. Discrimination against and oppres-
sion of any nationality are prohibited; any acts that undermine the unity of
the nationalities or instigate their secession are prohibited. The state helps
the areas inhabited by minority nationalities speed up their economic and
cultural development in accordance with the peculiarities and needs of the
different minority nationalities. Regional autonomy is practiced in areas
Trilingual Education and School Practice in Xinjiang 163
where people of minority nationalities live in compact communities; in

these areas organs of self-government are established for the exercise of the
right of autonomy. All the national autonomous areas are inalienable parts
of the People’s Republic of China. The people of all nationalities have the
freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages, and
to preserve or reform their own ways and customs (People’s Daily 2004).
The national constitution establishes the legitimate status of ethnic minority

groups in China and paves a way for later multilingual education in ethnic minor-
ity areas. The most recently issued Outline of China’s Mid-long Term Educational
Development reiterates that “the right to use and learn native languages and cul-
tures shall be respected and protected” (PRC Government Online 2010). At
present, the concept of multilingual education has been put into practice within
the territory of China and guaranteed by various laws and regulations made
by central and local governments.1 The rights and interests of ethnic minority
groups are protected and promoted in many ways by practicing regional auton-
omy for ethnic minority groups, creating and reforming ethnic minority scripts,
and setting up bilingual schools, to name just a few.
However, from a deep reading of current statements by PRC leaders, one can
notice a change of discourse in the policy and attitudes adopted towards minor-
ity groups. For example, Premier Wen Jiabao stated in his report to the 2008
National People’s Congress that:
China is a unified, multiethnic country. We must promote unity among all
ethnic groups and make a concerted effort to achieve prosperity and devel-
opment for all. We will follow and improve the system of regional ethnic
autonomy, promote economic and social development of ethnic minorities
and ethnic minority areas, and consolidate and develop socialist ethnic rela-
tions of equality, unity, mutual assistance and harmony (Wen 2008).
While multiethnic composition is a fact that the state cannot deny, or an inevi-
table item on the government’s agenda, the emphasis that the state gives to
policies relating to the ethnic minorities changes with time. The Constitution
of the PRC places more emphasis on the rights, freedoms, and peculiarities of
minorities, while Wen’s statement above stresses interethnic relationship and
unity. If there truly has been a change in emphasis, then one can ask: what has
caused that change? If a change in discourse has occurred, then one should
also ask whether there has been a corresponding change in the way state policy
164 Linda Tsung
has been implemented. This observation and perception of China as a state

of “ethnic diversity within unity” (Fei 1989) suggests that stakeholders at the
top level believe national unity and harmony are the cornerstones of China’s
socioeconomic development and stable ethnic relations. Evidence for changes
in discourse can be seen in the policy shift from mother-tongue education to
Putonghua monolingual education.
Traditionally, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), educa-
tion in the Uyghur mother-tongue has been the norm from primary to tertiary
levels. The minkaomin 民考民, minority students who take the college entrance
exam in their own language, are an example of the mother-tongue educational
model. In addition to Uyghur, the minkaomin track is also available in another
four minority languages in Xinjiang, namely Mongolian, Kazakh, Xibo and
Kirghiz.
Changes in language education proceeded gradually from higher to middle
and primary levels. In 2000, policy at the university level shifted towards the
use of Putonghua as the sole medium of instruction. There also has been a
step away from mother-tongue education at the secondary and primary levels
(Tsung 2009). As a result, universities established extra years of Putonghua
study for minority students entering tertiary schools. This delays them from
beginning study of their major, placing them at a further disadvantage in rela-
tion to their Han counterparts. This policy was followed by the introduction
of the HSK examination (Hanyu shuiping kaoshi 漢語水平考試) in minority
schools. Students who cannot pass Level 2 in the HSK have to study Chinese in
preparatory courses (yukeban 預科班) until their Chinese proficiency reaches
the required level. Minkaomin students who gain entrance into schools especially
designed for ethnic minority students, known as minzu 民族 institutions, or into
ethnic minority classes (minzuban 民族班) in comprehensive universities, are
generally sorted into a limited number of majors such as language and literature,
which they study in their native language. This limits, to a large extent, the oppor-
tunities of these students in tertiary education and future careers if they do not
learn perfect Putonghua. The lack of Chinese proficiency results in fewer choices
for students in selecting majors and reduces their employment opportunities
upon graduation.
The different types or models of bilingual education in Dai and Cheng’s clas-
sification (2007), such as structured immersion, transition, and maintenance,
correspond to the forms of bilingual education for minority groups in Baker’s
typology (2001: 194–201). Bilingual education policies vary region by region,
with the term “bilingual” often being equated with the use of Putonghua to teach
all subjects, except those subjects related to minority literature or literacy, some-
thing that could be called immersion in some instances or partial immersion
(Tsung 1999). This type of bilingualism using minority languages as a bridge
for Putonghua competency, advocated by Ma Rong (this volume), is becoming
increasingly popular in minority schools today. Schluessel (2007) points out that
this type of “bilingual education” is a euphemism for the mandatory increase in
the use of Putonghua in minority-language-speaking children’s school environ-
ments such as in Xinjiang.
Trilingual education (sanyu jiaoxue 三語教學) is a relatively new term in
China and refers to a language policy or practice of teaching the mother tongue,
Chinese, and English to minority students. In 2001, a policy of teaching English
was issued by the Ministry of Education, which states that if resources are avail-
able schools should start teaching English from Year 3 in primary schools (MOE
2001a, 2001b). This policy has not been implemented in many minority regions,
due to a lack of resources and trained teachers, as well as serious social, pedagogi-
cal, and logistical challenges (Adamson and Feng 2009).
Economic and political incentives have brought about a shift in government
policy and community attitudes toward the system of teaching the mother
tongues of minorities and bilingual and trilingual education. Recent concerns
present new factors on the political scene. China’s western provinces border
many countries. There has been worry about separatist movements among
some minority groups and disturbing interethnic violence in Lhasa, Ürümqi,
Shaoguan and other cities over the past few years. The media has paid a lot of
attention to the lower educational outcomes of minority students with blame
falling on mother-tongue education (Tsung 2009). This shift in attitudes has
led to a renewed policy push for Putonghua. In Xinjiang and other regions the
government has supported the development of merged schools where minor-
ity schools have been combined with Han schools and education is delivered
through Putonghua immersion. No one has addressed the question of whether
166 Linda Tsung
minority students can gain access to the study of English as a third language,
especially in western minority regions, or how the policy shift will address the
goals of minority students’ educational outcomes and national integration.
This chapter explores the multilingual education and school practices of
Uyghur education in the XUAR. It draws on case study data from two primary
schools, one a mixed Han/minority school and the second a Uyghur school in
a rural area, and examines the factors that have an impact on minority students’
educational outcomes. The study works from a linguistic ecological framework
to language education research relying on data from interviews with teachers and
students, observational and documentary evidence, and available statistical data
and policy/documentary analysis.
Linguistic Ecology Approach
Three key issues of interrelationships, interactions, and ideologies are explored

from an ecological perspective that takes into account the importance of the
environment and the linguistic diversity that exists in China’s multilingual
society. Haugen (1972: 325) has defined the linguistic ecology framework as
“the study of interactions between any given language and its environment.” An
ecological approach to language in society requires an exploration of the inter-
relationships between languages and the society in which they exist, especially
mainstream and minority languages. This includes the geographical, political,
socioeconomic, and cultural conditions in which the speakers of any given lan-
guage live, as well as the wider linguistic environment. Hornberger (2002: 35)
states that the linguistic ecological approach is a dynamic tool that “captures a
set of ideological underpinnings for a multilingual language policy.” In particular,
she points to how languages exist and evolve in an ecosystem along with other
languages, and how they [their speakers] “interact with their sociopolitical, eco-
nomic, and cultural environments.” The ecological model defined by Hornberger
shows how teachers and educators could implement the nested and intersecting
nature of a whole raft of language and literacy features. This approach therefore
provides researchers with the tools to consider how one language policy change
will cause potential changes in other factors and how this reconfigures the whole
educational picture, including opportunities for participation and success in
schools. The ecological approach also throws light on linguistic ideology. As

Hornberger (2002: 30) argues, “multilingual language policies are essentially
about opening up ideological and implementational space in the environment
for as many languages as possible.”
This study will focus on the interrelationship between Chinese-, Uyghur-,
and English-language instruction in Xinjiang. It specifically links together the
patterns of language use in education in its particular contexts, the classroom
and the school, and attempts to link them to the wider sociopolitical environ-
ment. By investigating multilingual classrooms using this model, one can see the
ways in which teachers and schools negotiate power through language teaching,
and how some languages come to win endorsement more than others. What
emerges from the study is a demonstration of the ways in which different teach-
ers create different classroom policies of their own, depending on their underly-
ing ideologies.
Background
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China’s far northwest is the coun-
try’s largest geographic region, covering 1.65 million square kilometers. The
XUAR is multiethnic, with thirteen major ethnic nationalities and a popula-
tion of 20.9 million. Based on China’s 2010 census, Uyghurs and other minority
groups comprise 59.9 percent of the region’s population and Han Chinese make
up 40.1 percent. The XUAR is a multilingual and multicultural society: three
nationalities speak Chinese (Han, Hui, and Manchus); five speak Turkic lan-
guages (Uyghur, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Uzbek, and Tatar); and other minority people
speak Russian (over 10,000) and Tajik (over 41,000). Uyghurs live mainly in the
south and in Ürümqi, Han in the north, and Kazakhs (Qazaqs) in the far north
(see Figure 7.1).
As the region’s most populous group, the Uyghurs predominate in Xinjiang.
Uyghur is the major regional language used in the XUAR and serves as a lingua
franca among other ethnic minority groups. The languages of the media are
Putonghua, Uyghur, and Kazakh. Six languages are used at the prefectural level:
Uyghur, Putonghua, Kazakh, Mongolian, Kirghiz, and Xibo. Tajik is also occa-
sionally used.2
168 Linda Tsung
Figure 7.1 Uyghur, Han, and Qazaq (Kazakh) population density at the prefecture level
in the XUAR
The education system has reflected this diversity with a system of separate
schooling based on mother-tongue instruction since 1949. Six languages are
currently used as mediums of instruction in primary and secondary educa-
tion: Putonghua, Uyghur, Kazakh, Mongolian, Xibo, and Kirghiz. More than
50 percent of all students attend minzu (ethnic minority) primary schools that
use one of the five minority languages as the medium of instruction. There are
also Hanzu 漢族 (Han Chinese) schools that use Putonghua as the medium of
instruction. Hanzu schools were first established in the 1950s, and their number
increased dramatically in the 1960s in response to the large immigration of Han
Chinese into Xinjiang. These schools use Putonghua as their medium of instruc-
tion even though the migrants themselves came from different dialect regions
within China. Han children comprise most of the enrollments in these schools,
although in the past decade the number of ethnic minority students has grown.
In recent years a third type of school model has been developed and put into
practice, a joint Chinese/minority school called minhan hexiao 民漢合校. These
schools take one of the three forms: Han schools in which there are minority
classes, minority ethnic schools with Han classes, or schools with mixed-nation-
ality classes. Such schools also can be found among minority groups in other
regions such as the Mongols in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and
the Koreans in Yanbian Korean Prefecture. The government’s policy, as reported
in the Xinjiang press, states that by 2008 all Chinese and ethnic schools had to
merge. However, during my field research it became clear that the implementa-
tion of the merged-school policy has been varied. In Ürümqi, all schools merged
in 2009. In many prefectures in south Xinjiang, however, the implementation of
merged schooling has been slow or impossible to execute because most schools
are minzu schools. The ostensible reason for this shift to Han-minority merged
schools lies in the perceived failure of separate minority schooling, where
there are massive dropout rates, poor educational outcomes, and low levels of
proficiency in Chinese. To this can be added the political concern that a more
integrated curriculum and school system would enhance national and social
integration.
The participation of minority students in senior high schools and university
is not satisfactory. In 2005, only 119,958 students attended minzu senior high
schools, one-tenth of the number of students who attend minzu primary schools.
By comparison, 80 percent of Han students enter senior high schools. Moreover,
the participation of Uyghurs and Kazakhs in tertiary education has been declin-
ing. The reasons for this are partly financial. Although the nine-year basic educa-
tion from primary to junior high school is free, senior high school demands a fee,
and because of this few Uyghurs in rural areas continue to senior high school.
Secondly, universities have stepped back from previous policies of positive dis-
crimination in favor of minority groups. Uyghur students from Uyghur schools
have traditionally been permitted to pass examinations with lower marks when
entering a university because of the government’s preferential policies (youhui
zhengce 優惠政策), so that they only have to compete with their peers, rather
than with Han students.
While the examination procedure of minkaomin, in which minority students
sit for examinations in their mother tongue, has not changed, the examination
170 Linda Tsung
papers have. Ethnic examination papers were once designed independently by

Uyghur examiners, but by the late 1990s examiners began to translate Chinese
examination papers instead. By doing so the level of difficulty of the examina-
tion papers for Uyghur students has been increased, because there is a mismatch
between Chinese and Uyghur curricula. A minimum requirement was also set
for mathematics, physics, and chemistry regardless of differentiated curricula.
That means that Han and Uyghur students sit the same paper in different lan-
guages, despite the lower levels of education, different curricula, extra study
of Chinese, and poor resources that minority schools face. Results reported in
the media show that students educated through mother-tongue education do
comparatively badly in these three subjects: for example, the minimum score
for mathematics to enter tertiary education was twenty-six marks for minority
ethnic students, and for Han students it was above eighty (Tsung 2009).
The lack of research into the reasons for the high attrition rates and low
educational outcomes and the lack of evaluation of the bilingual and trilingual
education in general, however, call attention to the rapid policy shift to mixed
schooling. To what extent will mixed schooling improve interrelationships and
interactions for Uyghur, Han and other minority students? Do merged schools
promote national integration between Uyghurs and Han Chinese? Will these
schools provide access to Chinese and English along with the minority language?
In fact, to what extent is either system premised on high educational outcomes
and access for minority groups? How are classroom ecologies in mixed schools
influenced and shaped by the law and how much by the teachers’ own ideologies
and classroom policies with regard to multilingualism and multiculturalism?
Methodology
I undertook field studies in 2006, 2009, and 2011 in two schools in Aksu
Prefecture. The field trips in 2009 and 2011 were mainly following up interviews
to see changes made in recent years. Aksu Prefecture is in southern Xinjiang
(see Figure 7.2); its total population is 2.26 million, 79.3 percent of whom
are non-Han Chinese people, Uyghurs being the majority (78 percent).3 The
methods undertaken were interviews with forty-five students, twenty-three
Uyghur and Chinese teachers, three school principals, and six educational
officials, and observations of Chinese, English, and mathematics lessons.

Analysis was done firstly in terms of themes and topics with responses being
grouped according to frequency of occurrence. Quotations in this chapter are
therefore representative of majority views from the interviews. Detailed analysis
was carried out on textbooks, curriculum documents, and worksheets collected
from schools. Examples given in this chapter are representative of the range of
textbooks used. The methodological framework was an ecological approach,
with mixed methods and careful consideration, for example, of what counted as
trilingual education and minority language policy in all contexts of the data used
from various sources (Hornberger 2002).
Figure 7.2 Location of Aksu Prefecture in the XUAR

172 Linda Tsung
The Schools
School 1 (S1), a mixed school in a county town center in Aksu,4 is the result of a
merger between adjacent Han and Uyghur schools. There were 691 students in
the school, 60 percent of them from Uyghur, Kazakh, and other minority fami-
lies, 40 percent Han Chinese who mostly came with their parents to Xinjiang
driven by the “Go West” campaign in the 1990s. Of the school’s twenty-two staff,
the principal is a Uyghur, the deputy principal a Han, and among the teachers
there are nine Chinese, six Uyghur, one Kazakh, and one Hui. Han and minority
teachers occupy two different staff rooms. The 2005 merger occurred because
the Uyghur school had no Chinese teacher and also because of falling student
enrollments there. Uyghur parents, especially cadres, teachers, and business
people, were sending their children to Han schools, arguing that Han schools
have better facilities and well-trained teachers (Uyghur parents 11 and 17).
Within the school, students are divided into two streams: Hanzu classes
for Chinese students and minzu classes for Uyghur and other ethnic minority
students. The sole medium of instruction for Hanzu classes is Putonghua. No
Uyghur is taught to Han students. English is a subject beginning in Year 3. The
compulsion to learn English starting in Grade 3 prevents Han students from
learning what is, in effect, the local language. The three English teachers were all
from a Chinese background. Uyghur is the medium of instruction in the minzu
class. Putonghua is taught as a subject from Year 3, four classes per week. All other
subjects in the curriculum are taught in Uyghur and all textbooks are in Uyghur,
except for Chinese-language books. The school runs one bilingual class in Year
4 in mathematics for Uyghur children, which uses Putonghua as the medium of
instruction, with limited explanations in Uyghur when needed.
School 2 (S2), another school selected for this study, is a rural-based school
located in a county in Aksu. There are 365 students in the school, 91 percent
Uyghur, 7 percent Kazakh, and 2 percent other ethnic groups. There are no Han
students enrolled in the school. In each class there are between thirty and forty-
five students. Most parents are farmers, but some are engaged in business and
a small number of them are cadres or teachers. All sixteen staff members have
an ethnic minority background: the principal and nine teachers are Uyghurs
and three teachers are Kazakhs. Most of the teachers graduated from the Aksu
teachers’ college. All staff members are fluent in Uyghur, but only seven are fluent
in Putonghua. The data in 2009 and 2011 show some improvement in teachers’
Putonghua proficiency.
Access to Uyghur, Chinese, and English
Access to quality teaching and learning in Chinese and English varied between
the schools. Although teachers and principals in both schools reported insuffi-
cient availability of Chinese-speaking teachers, S2, the rural school, was particu-
larly disadvantaged. It only began offering Putonghua in 1989 because parents
demanded it and then only as a subject from Year 4, while S1 taught Putonghua
from Year 3. The principal explained that it was not possible to extend this
further:
We used to start the Chinese class from Year 4. Now the government asks
schools to start teaching Chinese from Year 3, but no teachers are available.
I have problems in keeping good Chinese teachers here. A number of Han
Chinese teachers were assigned to our school before, but they all left. They
could not speak Uyghur and did not talk to other teachers. They could not
explain things in Uyghur to students, which was hard for the students. They
did not want to teach in the local school, they wanted to go to a large city
(Interviewee 5).
The current teacher of Chinese at S2, who is a Uyghur, was transferred from a
local accounting school, and although she had no training in teaching Chinese,
the principal was happy that she was willing to stay. In his words, “Any teacher
of Chinese is better than none at all.” This teacher was replaced in 2011 with
another Uyghur teacher who claims to have had one-year Chinese-language
teacher training.
There are three English teachers in S1, the merged school; in contrast there
are no English teachers in S2. The principal in S2 explained that there is a short-
age of English teachers in the area. A local educational official who is in charge of
the Department of Basic Education also stated:
The Uyghur children should just learn Chinese not English. They need
more time to learn Chinese well in primary school. If they don’t have
good Chinese, they will not be able to learn English. As none of the teach-
ers of English can speak Uyghur, they have to explain English grammar in
174 Linda Tsung
Chinese, and Uyghur students will have problems learning English through
Chinese (Interviewee 2).
The official also stated that there are no English teachers with a Uyghur back-
ground, because Uyghurs who speak good Chinese and English normally stay
in big cities, such as Ürümqi, or even Beijing or Shanghai. The comment was
echoed by a number of interviewees, which indicates that Uyghurs with mul-
tilingual competence have better career prospects than being a primary school
teacher.
One-Directional Integration: Accessing Language and Culture
Although both schools provide minority children with access to majority lan-
guage and culture, integration and access to them were more illusory than real.
Observations during class recess at S1 and teacher interviews showed that
Uyghur students did not mix with Chinese students outside the classroom or
school sites. Uyghur students played on one side of the playground and Chinese
students on the other. Teachers explained that the language barrier was still an
obstacle to integration because the level of Uyghur students’ mastery of Chinese
remained inadequate and Chinese students could not speak Uyghur. School
assemblies are conducted separately in different languages and school lunches
are taken separately because of Uyghur students’ dietary restrictions on eating
pork.
Uyghur teachers in S1 believed that the school merger had offered few bene-
fits for integration, apart from administrative convenience for the government. In
fact, some teaching positions for Uyghurs were lost with the merger. Uyghur and
Han students continued to be separated because of the language barrier. Teachers
commented that the integration only went one way and that current policy did
not respect Uyghur language and culture. One teacher from S1 commented:
If you want to live in our region, Uyghur should be learnt and taught to Han
students in schools. The majority of people here are Uyghurs. Of course we
need to learn the Han language. Everyone knows it is important to learn
the Han language, but our Uyghur language is also important. The policy
makes Uyghur students feel their language is not important, so the Han
students don’t learn it. We Uyghurs often regard people who speak our lan-
guage as friends because they respect our culture, as the Uyghur saying has
it: “recognize the language, not the face, to be friends,” which means, “if you
know how to speak my language, you will be my friend” (Interviewee 12).
Teachers and principals at both schools were concerned that there was little
opportunity for Uyghur students to speak and practice Chinese outside school,
and confirmed that school divisions were replicated in the community. They
reported that Uyghur children did not play with Han children outside school.
One teacher explained:
Before the 1980s, Chinese schools offered Uyghur lessons to Han students
from Year 3. So Han students could speak the Uyghur language, and thus
Han and Uyghur children would play together. It was good for them to have
this language exchange and mutual understanding. It is different now. After
the opening-up policy, Han parents are only interested in their children
learning English, and schools have replaced Uyghur language lessons with
English lessons. Han students don’t learn the Uyghur language any more.
After school many Han parents send their children to English tutoring
classes or mathematics tutoring. Han and Uyghur children no longer play
together (Interviewee 13).
Student interviews confirmed the lack of access to Chinese outside the class
and also the negative attitudes many had developed towards their home language
and culture. Some S1 students reported in interviews that they usually played
with Uyghur friends after school although they had some Chinese friends. Their
Chinese friends had no time to play with them because of after-school classes.
The language they used during their playtime was largely Uyghur, of course, with
the majority of students watching Uyghur films or Chinese movies with Uyghur
translation.
The curricula for the Chinese stream and the Uyghur stream were also dif-
ferent. Although study of English was compulsory for Chinese students, in S2
Uyghur students had no classes at all in English. Teachers believed that the lack
of access to English was common for minority students in Aksu.
The teachers believed that it was easier for Uyghurs to learn English than
Chinese because both English and Uyghur have alphabetic scripts. One of
the teachers suggested that the government should offer English to students
in Uyghur medium schools and that it should be taught through Uyghur, not
Chinese. It seems that Uyghur students desire English as a second language much
more than they do Chinese, and that the process of learning a third language,
176 Linda Tsung
English, through a second language, Chinese, makes learning an even greater

challenge for them.
Impact on Teachers, Pedagogy and Curriculum
Uyghur teachers and students faced similar disadvantages in both schools.

Teaching methods and materials in both schools failed to take into account the
fact that Uyghur students were second-language learners of Chinese. Uyghur
teachers frequently mentioned their concern that the school merger policy
would result in their jobs being taken by Han teachers. In S1, a Han teacher had
recently replaced a Uyghur teacher in the job of teaching Chinese, stating that the
Uyghur teacher’s pronunciation of Putonghua did not reach a sufficient stand-
ard. Interviewees, however, argued that Uyghur teachers make better teachers
because they can explain concepts in Uyghur where necessary. As role models
themselves, they can also give students self-confidence in learning Chinese.
The principals and teachers at both schools expressed dissatisfaction over the
Chinese teaching materials, which they found difficult to understand and irrel-
evant to minority students’ experiences and needs. This is a concern for many
scholars, including Li Sumei and Teng Xing (2008), who have proposed the
adoption of more locally relevant teaching materials (xiangtu jiaocai 鄉土教
材). Expectations were based on first-language, not second-language, learners of
Chinese. One Uyghur teacher commented:
In one term, for example, students are required to learn 294 Chinese char-
acters, but they can only remember about 100 characters. By Year 5, the
Education Department wants students to have learned 1,300 Chinese char-
acters but most students have learned only 500 to 600 characters. Most
lessons are not relevant to the life of students who don’t use Chinese outside
the classroom. For example, I taught them to use Chinese to buy vegetables,
but when they go to the market, they only need to speak Uyghur. They do
not need to use Chinese at all (Interviewee 5).
The content of the Chinese textbook published by the Xinjiang Education

Press is mostly ideologically and politically oriented rather than practical for
studying the Chinese language. The textbook aims to shore up the Uyghur stu-
dents’ patriotism rather than their Chinese linguistic competence. Here are two
examples from the textbook:
Lesson One: Women shi Zhongguo ren. 我們是中國人。We are Chinese.

Sentence pattern:
Women shi Zhongguo ren. 我們是中國人。We are Chinese.
Women re’ai women de zuguo. 我們熱愛我們的祖國。We love our
motherland.
Dialogue:
Jia: Wo shi Zhongguo ren. 我是中國人。I am a Chinese.
Yi: Wo ye shi Zhongguo ren. 我也是中國人。I am also a Chinese.
Jia: Women dou shi Zhongguo ren. 我們都是中國人。We are all Chinese.
Yi: Women re’ai women de zuguo. 我們熱愛我們的祖國。We love our
motherland.
Jia: Beijing shi women de shoudu. 北京是我們祖國的首都。The capital
city of our motherland is Beijing.
Yi: Women re’ai Beijing, women zuguo de shoudu. 我們熱愛北京，我們祖
國的首都。We love Beijing, the capital city of our motherland.
(Translation of extract from Year 4 textbook)5
Lesson Four: Xiangei guoqing de liwu 獻給國慶的禮物。Give a present

to the National Day.
Sentence pattern:
Wo xiang gei guoqingjie xianshang yijian liwu. 我想給國慶節獻上一件禮
物。I want to give a present to the National Day.
Dialogue:
Jia: Shiyue yiri shi guoqingjie, ni you shenme dasuan? 十月一日是國慶節，
你有什麽打算？The First of October is National Day, what is your
plan?
Yi: Wo xiang gei guoqingjie xianshang yijian liwu. 我想給國慶節獻上一件
禮物。I want to give a present to the National Day.
Jia: Ni xiang song shenme liwu? 你想送什麽禮物？What present do you
want to give?
Yi: Wo xiang songshang wo haohao xuexi, tiantian xiangshang de juexin. 我想
送上我好好學習，天天向上的决心。6 I want to give my determi-
nation to “study hard and make good progress every day.”
Jia: Hao ji le! Zhe shi zuihaode liwu. 好極了！這是最好的禮物。
Excellent! This is the best present.
(Translation of extract from Year 4 textbook)7
178 Linda Tsung
The dialogues are followed by an exercise in Chinese-character writing which

comprises a vocabulary list with Uyghur translation, character dictation, a selec-
tion of Chinese characters, and reading sentences, reading Chinese Romanization
(Hanyu pinyin 漢語拼音), and sentence writing exercises.
Teachers expressed concern that there were no supplementary reading
resources for Uyghur students. Stories in textbooks were written at too high a
level of Chinese for Uyghur students to understand and their content was obvi-
ously written for an audience of students with a Chinese background. Teachers
wanted bilingual books with Uyghur explanations. Some teachers also suggested
access to Chinese computer games.
Observations in both schools indicated that teachers used the same method
for teaching Chinese as they used when teaching it as a first language to Han
students. In one of the lessons observed, a Han Chinese teacher in S1 asked the
whole class to read the text aloud in chorus a few times and then gave a dicta-
tion of Chinese characters. Teachers in both schools commented that the poor
Chinese results were due to the laziness of Uyghur students because they did
not copy and practice Chinese characters enough. The traditional attitude that
being bright was equivalent to rote learning Chinese characters was reinforced in
lessons. Here follows a translated transcript of part of a lesson:
Teacher: Today we are learning Lesson 4 . . . open your books at Lesson
Four, page 18 (teacher writes title on board). Xiangei guoqing de
liwu. (Give a present to the National Day).8 Every one read after
me: Xiangei guoqing de liwu.
Students: Xiangei guoqing de liwu.
Teacher: Who can read the text? I told you to read it last week. Who can
read it? Hands up.
Students: (many students put their hands up)
Teacher: Good. Aili, you read it.
Aili: Xiangei guoqing de liwu. Wo xiang gei guoqingjie xianshang yijian
liwu (I want to give a present to the National Day) . . .
Teacher: Aili is very bright. He reads it very well. No mistakes. Maim, you
read it again.
Maim: Xingei guoqing de liwu . . .
Teacher: You have made many mistakes. This character is xian 獻 not xin
信. Did you practice it yesterday?
Maim: Yes I did.
Teacher: Maim is not very bright. Azi, you read it again.

Azi: Xiangei guoqing de liwu . . .
Teacher: Azi is very bright. She knows all the characters. If you are bright,
you should know many Chinese characters. Now if you want to
get a good job, you have to be bright, and if you want to be bright,
you need to study Chinese very hard. If you only know Uyghur,
you are not bright; you need to know Chinese. Do you under-
stand that?
Students: Yes. We understand.
Teacher: Now, everyone read the text together.
Students: Xiangei guoqing de liwu . . .
(Transcript of excerpt from Chinese lesson)
In this interaction, the Han teacher constructs knowledge of Uyghur nega-

tively and monolingualism among Uyghurs as indicating lack of intelligence.
Fluency in the majority language is gained by effort and rote learning and is
equated with intelligence. Uyghur-speaking Chinese teachers are themselves
constructing a power difference between Uyghur and Chinese identities, equat-
ing the former with powerlessness and lack of intellect, and the latter, ambition
and intelligence. The possibility of dual identities is not explored. A similar
outcome was found among Uyghur students studying at Inland Xinjiang Classes
(neidi Xinjiangban 內地新疆班) (see Chen 2008 and Chen, this volume).
A Bilingual Class
Uyghur and other minority students in both S1 and S2 were achieving below
average in standardized test results in not only Chinese but also mathematics and
every other curriculum subject. One isolated exception was the bilingual class
at S1 taught by a Chinese-speaking Uyghur teacher. Observations in the math-
ematics class revealed that students were well motivated, perhaps because the
teacher gave detailed explanations and used visual support. The teacher said that
although students initially had some problems understanding the mathematics
lessons, there had been much improvement with help from a bilingual Chinese-
Uyghur mathematics vocabulary list compiled by one of the teachers. The S1
principal also commented on the success of the bilingual class and reported
that many Uyghur parents wanted to enroll their children in it, but the school
180 Linda Tsung
could not accept more students because only one teacher was trained in bilin-
gual methods and could teach different subjects in Putonghua and also rely on
Uyghur to explain difficult concepts whenever students needed assistance. I con-
ducted an interview with the students in the class after their lesson. In this focus
group interview, all students reported that they enjoyed the bilingual class, and
they evidently liked their teacher. Students commented that they learned math-
ematics better because the teacher explained concepts thoroughly, although they
sometimes had difficulty with diagrams and charts.
In the final yearly examination, the marks of Uyghur students in the bilingual
class were 40 to 50 percent higher than they were in other Chinese and math-
ematics classes, an outcome reported in the local newspaper, the principal noted.
This significant outcome may be the result of quality teaching, or higher motiva-
tion among selected students, or both. But regardless, it is the principal’s pre-
ferred method for the school.
Discussion
Schooling is in part a reflection of society and its values. Under China’s current
rapid economic development a disparity has grown between the economically
advanced east and the western provinces where most of China’s minorities live. In
Xinjiang disparity and inequality exist between the Uyghur and Han people and
between urban and rural Uyghurs. The present school system seems to replicate
these disparities and inequalities. The present policy shift from mother-tongue
education (Uyghur) to trilingual education (Uyghur, Chinese, and English) only
promises to exacerbate them.
Interrelationship: Uyghur, Chinese, and English
The findings indicate that multilingual education in schools reflects the interrela-
tionship between Uyghur-, Chinese-, and English-language statuses in Xinjiang.
This is a true reflection of the power shift that affects regional, national and inter-
national language use and practice. The power relationship of language in educa-
tion is one of changing linguistic hierarchies. Uyghur is spoken by 8.8 million
native Uyghur speakers and over six million second-language speakers among
Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Uzbeks, Tatars and other groups. Its lingua franca status has
weakened in Uyghur society and the educational system. The use of Uyghur
in education has declined as a result of the position that Chinese has occupied
as the region’s dominant language. It is very clear that Han Chinese living in
Xinjiang make no effort and are not required to learn Uyghur in schools or use
it in society. The relationship between Chinese and Uyghur today represents a
form of one-directional language learning, similar to the situation found in colo-
nialism, where a majority must learn the colonial language, not the other way
around. Interviewees highly value English as a global language. However, lack of
resources, particularly in rural schools, makes it almost impossible for Uyghur
children to learn it.
There exists a clear inequality between S1, the mixed Uyghur/Chinese
urban school and S2, the Uyghur rural school. Differences in levels of resourc-
ing and teacher training and availability go some of the way towards accounting
for the gap in terms of educational experiences and outcomes. Urban schools
have better resources than rural schools. It is easier for urban schools to recruit
teachers; teachers are more likely to stay; students in the urban schools can have
access to English classes and also Chinese classes at an earlier age than rural chil-
dren. Rural children experience late access, poor quality teaching, and no bilin-
gual education classes. As a result, Uyghur children in rural schools fall behind
Uyghur children in urban schools. Urban/rural inequality, which exists through-
out China, affects minority groups disproportionately because they live mainly
outside urban areas.
Uyghur children in both urban and rural areas experience unsatisfactory
educational outcomes in mathematics and other school subjects through their
study of these subjects in Uyghur. They also are not reaching satisfactory levels of
fluency in Putonghua and lack the education in English that Han children have.
The differences in teacher availability, teaching methods, and suitable curricula,
books, and resources go a long way to account for the differences in outcomes.
Segregation and Integration
In the 1980s, government policy promoted separate schooling for minority and
Han students. Today the government’s response to the differential outcomes
182 Linda Tsung
between the two groups has been a policy of merged schooling, a policy justi-
fied by claims that it promotes bilingual education and national integration.
According to this view, the problem in outcomes were caused by the type of
school and the existence of separate minority schools, rather than by the quality
of education being provided to minority children.
The findings of the small snapshot study in this chapter indicate that seg-
regation continues to exist between Chinese and Uyghur students in merged
schools. Furthermore, based on the data from this study, the merger of schools
will not be effective unless the process is properly resourced. In merged schools
there continues to be a divide between Chinese and minority students. Minority
students do not receive any specific support in learning Chinese as a second lan-
guage. There was little evidence of interaction and integration between groups of
teachers or students in the schools; in fact, the school situation maintained and
exacerbated community divisions. The current school merger policy answers
pragmatic, not educational, objectives and continues the segregation of students
by ethnicity. The policy regarding school mergers poses the dilemma of ethnic
and cultural maintenance and educational achievement for students and policy
makers.
Language barriers, ethnic attitudes and government policy remain as prob-
lems for integration. In order to gain real integration, some pain from the impact
of integration is unavoidable and necessary (see Postiglione, this volume). Poor
Chinese proficiency among Uyghur children is a major obstacle that prevents
them from interacting with Han children. Among the Han, children are not
taught, and have little incentive to learn, Uyghur in schools located in majority
Uyghur population areas.
Bilingual and Trilingual Education
Education officials in Xinjiang use the term “bilingual education” frequently.

However, this research showed little evidence of proper bilingual education
except in one class in S1. Most so-called bilingual education did not utilize
bilingual teaching and involved no specific provisions for minority background
students.
The current merged school system provides neither bilingual nor trilingual
education. In the two schools S1 and S2, no allowance was made for teaching
Chinese as a second language. The textbooks and teaching methods used are the
same as those used to teach Chinese as a first language to Han Chinese students.
The patriotic slogans and national-unity driven content in the Chinese textbook
reflect the key objectives of teaching. Meanwhile, Chinese communication
skills are somewhat neglected. The inadequate training of the teachers teaching
Chinese as a second language, the textbooks, the pedagogy, and the linguistic
environment all posed obstacles to Uyghur students working to become bilin-
gual or trilingual.
This chapter also raises questions about the motives behind the shift towards
merged schooling. If increased educational outcomes are the goal, then why are
there no programs and policies for trilingual (Uyghur, Chinese, and English)
instruction for both Uyghurs and Chinese? Why are there still such disparities
in resourcing between minority and Chinese schools? Why are resources avail-
able for Han Chinese students to learn English while there is no requirement for
them to learn Uyghur? Why is there little or no access for Uyghur students to
study English? It would seem that, if merged schooling is to be successful, then
proper bilingual education must be provided to students in these schools and
the development of bicultural/multicultural school environments must become
a priority. This is not just a resourcing issue but one that requires a shift in atti-
tudes and policy.
Conclusion
The interrelationship between three languages and their instruction in Xinjiang

represents the social, political and economic power in the PRC. Chinese is the
internal power while English is the external (i.e., beyond China) power. Both
enjoy the benefits of offering the best sources of language as symbolic capital
(Bourdieu 1989, 1991) for the advancement of one’s education and careers.
Uyghur as a regional and cultural language has lost value in the market economy.
This study highlights the fact that Uyghur people have now realized the prag-
matic value of Chinese and English. The issue is not so much the medium of
instruction, bilingual or trilingual education, or mixed schooling than it is the
184 Linda Tsung
range of factors that affect the educational outcomes of the students and their
access to fluency in minority languages as well as Chinese and English. There
are a number of strategies that need to be adopted if educational outcomes for
Uyghur students are to improve and bilingual and trilingual education is to gain
widespread acceptance in Xinjiang.
Firstly, organizational changes need to be undertaken in the educational
system. These include the provision of trained bilingual teachers. As with the
Korean bilingual programs (see Gao, this volume), more Uyghur teachers need
to be trained to teach bilingually across all subjects, including Chinese and
English. Secondly, the provision of sufficient culturally relevant materials needs
to be developed across all subjects. From a multilingual perspective Chinese and
English teaching materials should be developed based on the linguistic and cul-
tural needs of students. Content-based learning will provide students with a sup-
portive, non-authoritarian learning environment and increase internal student
motivation. Lastly, there is interaction. There should be a policy to promote cog-
nitive and social environments in which the first and second languages are used.
Uyghur students should have access to good, cognitively challenging learning
through access to Chinese language outside the classroom. Integration needs
to involve both groups, Uyghurs and Han. The policy should encourage Han
children in Xinjiang to become bilingual or even trilingual in Chinese, Uyghur,
and English. The examination-oriented educational system should be reformed.
A practical and careful policy is necessary to encourage Han students to learn
Uyghur language and culture.
The lack of interaction between Han and Uyghur students identified in this
study is alarming. The system of language learning mirrors that of a colonial state.
The local Uyghurs must learn Chinese, while Chinese who come to Uyghur-
speaking regions do not have to learn Uyghur. The current education system is
“integration in policy, segregation in reality.” The PRC government promotes
itself as a harmonious, unified, multilingual, and multicultural mosaic: a paradox
of “multiplicity and unity” (duoyuan yiti 多元一體). The state school system
is now seen as a frontline in the battle to push Chinese society towards what
Postiglione (in this volume) terms a “harmonious multiculturalism.” However
Han-Uyghur linguistic segregation and discrimination within this system will
only increase linguistic conflicts and social tension above existing levels, which
will affect China’s goal of becoming a harmonious society.
As this study makes clearly evident, the ideology of China’s national unity and
patriotic education has strongly influenced language curricula in schools. For
China’s ethnic minorities, language teaching and learning are both the medium
and the message (Fairclough 1989); together, they contribute to the system of
societal stratification beyond linguistic and cultural differences. Language policy
implementation is based on prevailing political, monocultural, and ideologi-
cal attitudes, which in turn influence school and classroom language practice.
A strong multilingual education policy model, which balances diversity with
integration in the educational sphere, should be implemented. Educational out-
comes and access to effective education in minority and majority languages will
continue to be limited without proper resourcing and a real shift in educational
policy and planning.
8
Multicultural Education and Ethnic
Integration
A Case Study of Girls’ Education in the Lahu Area
Teng Xing, Yang Hong, and Yang Qixue
Multicultural education seeks to ensure equal learning opportunities for all stu-
dents without regard for their gender, class, race, culture, ethnicity, or religion.
When it comes to equal educational access, we find that the research on the
education of ethnic minority girls with multi-marginalized identities of great
theoretical and practical significance. Therefore, this chapter uses girls’ educa-
tion among the Lahu ethnic minority (Lahuzu 拉祜族) as a case study of multi-
cultural education by considering issues such as ethnic and gender disparity and
urban and rural differences.
Research Background: An Indigenous Southwest Ethnic Minority
The Lahu are a transnational ethnic group of China, with most of its 475,000
people concentrated in the southeast part of Yunnan Province (see Figure
8.1).1 The Lahu outside of China mostly inhabit some of China’s neighboring
countries such as Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand, as well as the United States.
Before the founding of the PRC, the Lahu typically practiced the sort of mat-
rilocal residence often associated with primitive agricultural societies. Lancang
Lahu Autonomous County (Lancang Lahuzu zizhixian 瀾滄拉祜族自治縣)
in Yunnan Province, China’s only Lahu autonomous county, has been poverty-
stricken and receiving government support since 1949. Even with industrial
restructuring and relatively fast-paced development since 2003, the region
remains one of the most agricultural counties in the border region, and therefore
still receives priority in state aid.
188 Teng Xing, Yang Hong, and Yang Qixue
Figure 8.1 Location of Lancang Lahu Autonomous County in Yunnan Province
Muga Township (Muga xiang 木嘎鄉), located in the mountainous Lahu

region, is home to Lancang’s oldest indigenous Lahu community. The region’s
dense subtropical forest climate and the mountainous terrain’s traffic obstacles
mean that relatively few Han inhabit or visit this region. Restricted by a harsh
natural environment, poor living conditions, lagging medical and health-care
infrastructure, and fragile ethnic psychology, the Lahu continue to exhibit nega-
tive growth,2 and continue to rely on a self-sufficient economy, where goods are
produced mainly for direct consumption by the producers. People in this area
maintain a meager subsistence.
The economic condition of the Lahu has created a corresponding cultural-
ecological environment. First, primary agriculture and half-gathering with an
agricultural mode of production and low level of productivity means that the
Lahu people generally lack sufficient food and clothing. Second, local people
Multicultural Education and Ethnic Integration 189
mainly use their traditional language, which does not have a written script,
despite the contribution of two sets of characters created by Christian mission-
aries in the 1920s and the Chinese government in the 1950s.3 Third, due to its
special geographical conditions and local customs, people basically practice
endogamy rather than exogamy, leading to a very small scope for intermarriage.
Fourth, in spite of the periodic intrusion of external civilizations, the traditional
and enclosed culture of the Lahu mountainous area remains largely unaffected.
So far, outside cultures have influenced the Lahu community through (a) the
local administration of government agencies; (b) cultural transmission through
government-established primary and middle schools; (c) local commercial activ-
ities initiated by the Han Chinese; (d) church activities organized by Christian
missionaries; (e) population outflows (especially by women) due to migration;
and (f) the introduction of modern communication and media technologies
since 2003 (Yang 2010).
The development of school education in the Lahu mountainous region has
been more or less hampered by the historical experience,4 natural environment,
and livelihood and local customs of the Lahu people. In 1947, the first complete
primary school was formally established in Muga Township (Bianweihui 1996).
Since the 1980s, with the country’s further implementation of education poli-
cies and the local government’s forceful promotion of them, Muga Township
gradually achieved universal four-year education (pusi 普四) and universal six-
year education (puliu 普六) for school-aged students, 5 and basically eliminated
illiteracy among young and middle-aged people.6 However, the state policy of
nine-year compulsory education (jiunianzhi yiwu jiaoyu 九年制義務教育),
after which one is considered literate, remains to be achieved in the township.
The achievements to date in Muga Township and elsewhere in the Lahu moun-
tainous region were based mainly on the increasing number of students enrolled.
Due to a shortage of teaching facilities and competent teachers, students in the
area could hardly achieve qualified academic performance. In 2007, the average
time spent on education by Muga residents was only about three years,7 an indi-
cation of the township’s weak educational foundation. As a pathway into modern
society, schools have been isolated from the traditional Lahu communities and
families, resulting in a lack of effective interactions between the schools, families,
and communities.
The Process of Setting up the Lahu Girls’ Class and Its Results
China now faces serious problems such as urban and rural differences and
regional, ethnic, and social class disparity. Unfortunately, these problems exist
among all China’s ethnic minorities, especially those disadvantaged groups living
in remote areas (Guan and Teng 2006). Ethnic minority girls are even further
marginalized, as they belong to several stigmatized categories: ethnic minor-
ity, female gender, poor social status, and low economic class. As members of
a multi-marginalized group, they can only realize integration into the social
mainstream by receiving education. Given their history, students from ethnic
minorities usually win relatively little academic achievements, which make it
even harder for them to fit into mainstream society through education. Since
the founding of the PRC in 1949, the state has developed a national educational
system that promotes national unification and seeks to meet the demands from
the planned economy. This system includes a nationwide education structure, a
uniform length of schooling, and a universal teaching curriculum. However, the
policy aims at spreading Han culture by using Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua
普通話) as the predominant teaching language, ignoring the diversity of situa-
tions and native languages that exist in ethnic minority areas. At the same time,
prejudices and stereotypes about ethnic minority students prevail. It is com-
monly believed that ethnic minorities like the Lahu are impossible to educate,
and that their children are slow-witted and unteachable. More importantly, most
Han teachers working in Lahu areas believe this, and their ethnic prejudices and
gender stereotypes can be easily observed during teaching.
In an effort to counteract some of these negative trends, Professor Teng Xing,
the primary author of this chapter, started a Lahu Girls’ Class (Lahu nütongban
拉祜女童班) in 2001 with the support of the Ford Foundation. The class aimed
primarily to provide information for further discussion about issues concerning
ethnic minority girls’ education—such as school truancy and dropout, low aca-
demic achievements, gender inequality, and ethnic development through edu-
cation—and to conduct a practical experiment in best methods for balancing
multicultural education and ethnic integration. Lahu girls were chosen because
they were assumed to be the future backbone of their matriarchal society. The
research team intended to cultivate a whole class of enlightened mothers who

might positively change their community once they gave birth to their children.
Initiated in May 2001, the program included three parts: (1) uncovering the
reasons why Lahu girls are deprived of education or discontinue their studies
through fieldwork analysis; (2) training teachers for the Lahu Girls’ Class; and
(3) supporting forty-five girls from impoverished families in Muga Township to
finish their six-year primary school education. The program provided 15,000 US
dollars to cover textbook costs, tuition fees, and minimal living expenses, while
the county government subsidized their daily life and the township government
purchased their bedding. In this way, the girls’ families only had to pay for their
staple food.
In July 2001, the research group together with the Muga Township
Government selected forty-five poor Lahu girls from the region’s six administra-
tive villages. At the same time, they set up another Han Chinese class as a control
group. The first Lahu Girls’ Class attracted wide attention from various circles.
The Han and Lahu classes were maintained as separate entities before Grade 5.
Through coordinated and concerted effort by the county government, the coun-
ty’s Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs, the county’s Bureau of Education, the
Lancang Minority Primary School, and the Muga Township Government, the
Lahu Girls’ Class finally merged with the Lancang Minority Primary School in
September 2004, and the girls saw the world beyond the mountain where they
lived for the very first time. In 2007, most girls in the class graduated from their
primary school with honors. That same year, the research team applied for an
extension of the program so that the forty-five girls could continue their studies
at Lancang Minority Middle School. Then again, in July 2010, they graduated
with excellent academic scores from middle school, completing their nine years
of compulsory education (Teng and Yang 2004). The merger provided the Lahu
girls with opportunities to obtain the knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes
that they needed in order to succeed in society at large, but it also separated them
culturally from their home and community.
During those years, the research group undertook follow-up and compara-
tive studies. They wished to examine whether differences in academic achieve-
ments existed among ethnic minority students in Lancang County; whether
gender disparity resulted in low academic achievement; and whether poor
academic accomplishment among Lahu students was a widespread and unsolv-

able problem. However, after analyzing the statistics of students from previous
years,8 we found no particular differences in academic performance between the
Lahu girls and students in other classes at the same grade level, including both
boys and girls with urban backgrounds and various ethnic groups. We also con-
cluded from the statistics that Lahu girls generally did better than Lahu boys,
until second grade in middle school when boys caught up with the girls in math
and science. This analysis demonstrates that, in a favorable environment with
trained teachers and updated facilities, and with appropriate interventions, Lahu
girls could do just as well as other students. This proves that the gender stereo-
types and ethnic prejudices are groundless, and testifies to the fact that the low
academic achievements of Lahu girls can be improved.
During their nine-year compulsory education, the students from the Lahu
Girls’ Class demonstrated conspicuous advantages over other students in the
Lahu region—in terms of Chinese language competence, multicultural commu-
nication, academic aspiration, and academic achievements—as indicated by the
fact that the marks they received on all exams exceeded both their Lahu class-
mates and the county average. Moreover, they displayed a stronger desire to learn
and held clearer views about their future than did their peers outside the girl’s
class. More importantly, the previous attitude among the girls that only Lahu
identity mattered adapted to allow cultural and national identities to interact and
intersect. These girls not only maintained a positive attitude toward their ethnic
culture but also clarified their commitment to the nation. The findings of this
program hold great significance for the development of the education of ethnic
minority girls and even all ethnic minority students.
Reflections and Further Theoretical Discussion on the Lahu Girls’

Class
As early as the 1950s, educational anthropologists in the West began to pay

close attention to the low academic achievements of ethnic minority students
in the United States, especially African American students (Ogbu 1995). They
analyzed and explained this phenomenon from different perspectives and then
put forward many attribution theories, such as the Genetic Differences Theory,
Cultural Discontinuity Theory, and Cultural Deprivation Theory. However, we

believe that multiple factors—such as social environment, family background,
school administration, community culture, and teaching staff—contribute to
the low academic achievements of ethnic minority students in China and else-
where. Taking the unique historical and cultural experiences of each minority
group into context, none of these “grand theories” can comprehensively explain
China’s complex and unique situation, especially when these theories were based
on external conditions quite different from what exists in China.
In the remote Lahu mountainous area, what is taught in modern schools
lacks any connection with local community culture. The content of all teach-
ing materials are about mainstream society. Teachers impart knowledge that
reflects the modern views of the outside industrialized world, because schools
are obliged to produce skilled graduates that can be integrated into the modern
society. However, graduates from primary and middle schools can hardly meet
the requirements set by the modern labor market outside their town, because
they live in a cultural-ecological environment where communities still practice
primary agriculture and half-gathering and schools suffer low-quality teaching.
As a result, most of the graduates who are rejected by mainstream society have to
go back to their traditional communities.
As illustrated in Figure 8.2, the outside, industrialized world penetrates into
the traditional communities of the Lahu mountainous area through modern
schools. The Structural-Functional Model in educational anthropology believes
that education reflects the fact that social structures and demands serve the poli-
tics and economy with which it corresponds (Ha and Teng 2001). Influenced by
this model, Wilson’s Technological-Functional Theory assumes that schools are
expected to equip students with the social behaviors and cognitive skills needed
to meet the demands of the labor market. This in turn will promote the expan-
sion of school education by enhancing the standard for skilled workers (Ha and
Teng 2001). In modern industrialized societies, formal school education links
specialized profession with social status. So it is only through education that
ethnic minority students can be trained to master those advanced techniques
required in certain specialized professions that will finally win them social status
and benefits.
However, in its present form, modern school education in the Lahu moun-
tainous area cannot meet this need for special skills required by an industrialized
society. As Figure 8.2 demonstrates, modern schools do bring the outside indus-
trial world into the traditional Lahu communities, but there are obstacles that
block ways out for Lahu students. Because of these obstacles, Lahu students, who
receive some modern education, can only achieve low-level academic perfor-
mance, which disqualifies them from the modern labor market. When rejected,
they can only go back to their traditional communities where they have to make
a living by using what their parents taught them when they were children and
what they have learned from their ancestors (for example, how to procure honey-
combs and obtain protein from them). To make matters worse, many of them are
no longer familiar with traditional livelihood means, which puts them in a very
Specialized profession
that requires formal
education
1
Traditional
Outside communities
industrialized Modern in the Lahu
world schools mountain areas
2
Ignorant
Obstacles of the
traditional
Social status means of
livelihood
(1) Poor economy

(2) Restraints of the natural conditions
(3) Lacking teaching staff and competent teachers
(4) Backward education administration
Some culturally-
(5) Teaching language barrier and lagging bilingual marginalized
education people emerge
(6) Influence from traditional culture and community
(7) Defective education system
(8) Poor health condition
(9) Underdeveloped labor market and insufficient job offers
Figure 8.2 The structural-functional ecology of Lahu mountainous schooling

awkward position. This is when ethnic minority people begin to question their
cultural identity and quite a number of them become culturally marginalized.
A Lahu family, with its humble income,9 can never bring up a student that
meets the standards of modern society and thus gains high returns from it.
Education is a long-term and indirect investment of great potential; however, for
communities where higher education has not been popularized, it is still seen as
a great risk. Most parents in the Lahu mountainous area are unwilling to make
such an investment, because they cannot see its immediate returns. Indeed,
those students who do receive some education still face rejection by the modern
world and struggle to obtain a higher level of social status and decent income.
This inevitably lowers parents’ educational expectations for their children, which
in turn, feeds low academic achievement. This creates a vicious circle in culture,
economy, and education.
How can this cycle be broken? We believe that with the further develop-
ment of socioeconomic integration, the isolated Lahu community will gradually
engage in more interactions with the outside world. In the meantime, a few Lahu
students could be selectively integrated into the modern labor market and thus
gain higher social status. However, at present, only a few Lahu students can inte-
grate into mainstream society owing to various limiting factors such as a poor
economy, cultural differences, a harsh natural environment, and a shortage of
teaching staff. To keep pace with the times, schools in the Lahu mountainous
area should, on the one hand, enhance their teaching quality so that students
can better accommodate themselves with the dominant culture. On the other
hand, they should compile textbooks that contain community-relevant knowl-
edge so as to help the Lahu people to solve practical life problems and improve
their living standards.
Inspired by multicultural education theory from abroad and Fei Xiaotong’s
paradigm (1991) of “ethnic pluralism within organic configuration of the
Chinese nation” (Zhonghua minzu duoyuan yiti de geju 中華民族多元一體的
格局), and seeking to apply these insights to the realm of education, Teng Xing
proposed a new “multicultural integration education theory” (duoyuan wenhua
zhenghe jiaoyu lilun 多元文化整合教育理論), which rests on the claim that a
multiethnic nation shoulders the responsibility to transmit not only the culture
of the dominant ethnic group but also that of its ethnic minorities (see Figure
8.3). Multicultural integration education literally means a pedagogy that dissem-

inates the combination of both dominant and minority cultures (Teng 1998).
People from ethnic minority communities should learn both their own culture
and mainstream culture, so that they can better accommodate themselves within
society and strive for their best personal development. At the same time, in order
to promote people’s awareness of ethnic equity and unity, members of the main-
stream culture should also learn about the fine traditions of ethnic minorities.
This theory has always advocated the adherence to common cultural and eco-
nomic prosperity and development by inheriting the fine heritages of various
ethnic groups and also strengthening cultural exchanges between different ethnic
groups in order to promote mutual respect, equality, friendship, and harmony. It
is the best method for achieving ethnic unity in a multiethnic nation like China.
As demonstrated in Figure 8.3, multicultural integration education allows
the outside, industrialized world to enter traditional communities like that of
the Lahu while also building bridges between external civilization and ethnic
cultures. In this way, Lahu students can successfully meld into mainstream
culture while also maintaining and promoting their own culture and tradition.
Multicultural integration education, as the final and ideal type of education, can
The ability to accommodate

oneself with mainstream culture
Outside Traditional
industrialized Multicultural integration communities
world education in minority
areas
Fine cultural traditions of

different ethnic groups
Figure 8.3 Schema of multicultural integration education

complement the modern school education system by helping minority students

to overcome the problems of culture and linguistic discontinuity; explain the
content, situation, and behavior in teaching processes by using their cultural
values; and maintain their traditional culture selectively. Additionally, it can
greatly improve the academic achievements of students by encouraging them
to learn mainstream culture and develop social communication skills, and by
helping them to acculturate with the dominant culture (Teng and Yang 2004).
As a successful case study in multicultural integration education, the Lahu
Girls’ Class drew on the experiences of Western countries, and took into con-
sideration China’s unique conditions. Given the fact that female ethnic minor-
ity students need both mainstream and local cultures to accustom themselves
to society, we designed a Lahu culture class in order to teach students the Lahu
language. Apart from that, lectures were given on many other subjects to help
these girls improve their quality of life, such as hygiene, women’s rights and pro-
tections, and the benefits and value of a modern education.
We conclude with some useful findings from the success of the Lahu Girls’
Class: (1) High academic performance is predicated on the good physical condi-
tion of the students; (2) a good campus culture adds to the school’s attractive-
ness; (3) active engagement in the learning process of students can help teachers
generate more enthusiasm and higher expectations; (4) smooth transition from
a monolingual to bilingual environment lays a solid foundation for reading and
writing; (5) the full use of outside resources wins more attention and support;
and (6) additional follow-up studies can provide theoretical guidance for teach-
ers, educational administrators, and even local government officials who still
need to change their mindset and improve their abilities (Yang 2010).
This nine-year research project, by demonstrating the obvious advantages
this class gave to the Lahu girls over other Lahu students, proves that multicul-
tural integration education is an effective way to achieve both ethnic integration
and the development of China’s ethnic minorities. In the future, the govern-
ment should create equal learning opportunities for all ethnic minority students,
enhance the quality of primary education, and even implement preferential
policies for teaching staff distribution so as to increase the chances that ethnic
minority students will enter mainstream culture. At the same time, the specific
conditions of minority areas should be taken into account and certain local
knowledge and skills should be provided to those who do not wish to receive
further formal education.
The project was a quasi-experimental study, which lasted only until the girls
graduated from junior-middle school. It was a successful trial of multicultural
integration education because it produced modern Lahu girls who could blend
into industrialized society yet still preserve their own culture. Whether the ulti-
mate goals in setting up this class can be attained remains to be seen. We still have
to wait for several more years in order to know whether these girls will contribute
to their Lahu community or simply leave the mountain and never come back.
Part III
Educational Integration in China

Proper: Pathways and Barriers
9
Towards Another Minority Educational
Elite Group in Xinjiang?
Chen Yangbin
Recently Western countries such as Australia, Canada, and America have apolo-
gized at a national level for the previous boarding school policies aimed at their
indigenous minorities, namely aboriginals in Australia and native Americans
in Canada and America (Welch 2008; Brown 2008). Similar educational pro-
grams are still practiced in some Asian countries, for example, Vietnam and Laos
(Postiglione 2009a). Among others, China’s contemporary dislocated board-
ing school policies have been implemented for youth from two major ethnic
minority groups: Inland Tibetan Middle Schools (neidi Xizang zhongxue 內地
西藏中學, hereafter Xizang zhongxue) for Tibetans and Inland Xinjiang Senior
High School Classes (neidi Xinjiang gaozhongban 內地新疆高中班, hereafter
Xinjiangban) for Uyghurs.1 As of 2013, the Xizang zhongxue and Xinjiangban
have been running for twenty-eight years and thirteen years respectively.
Compared with the Xizang zhongxue, the Xinjiangban is a newer phenom-
enon but with a larger scale given the population in Xinjiang (Sixth National
Population Census 2010). The overall enrollment is significant: since their
advent in 2000, the yearly enrollment of the Xinjiangban started with around
one thousand students, but increased to five thousand students five years later
(MOE, National Committee on Development and Reform, and Ministry of
Finance 2005) before reaching seven thousand students in 2011 (Xinjiang
Classes 2011). Following four years of senior high school (including a one-year
preparatory class plus three years of a normal senior high school curriculum),
the first group of graduates completed their university training and entered the
job market in Xinjiang or the rest of China in 2008. By 2010, about 13,000 stu-
dents had graduated from Xinjiangban ( Jiang 2011), with many of them going
202 Chen Yangbin
on to be successfully admitted to inland universities. It is estimated that there are

now around 3,500 Xinjiangban university graduates ( Jiang 2011). The number
of these graduates is likely to spike in 2013 and 2019 when classes that were
affected by the eight continuous enrollment expansions since 2005 will gradu-
ate. Considering the population of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
(XUAR), which is about 20 million, the Xinjiangban policy will have a signifi-
cant impact on the Uyghur ethnic group and Uyghur-Han relations in China.
This chapter seeks to explore Xinjiangban university graduates’ experiences
at inland universities. It proposes the minority educational elite stratum as a
framework for analyzing this policy and its impacts, and suggests that Uyghur
Xinjiangban university graduates could become a new educational elite stratum
in the XUAR in the very near future ( Jiang 2011).2 The chapter offers a prelimi-
nary assessment of how this group feels about their elite status. In particular, the
empirical data finds that, compared with their minkaomin (民考民) co-ethnics,
they express pride in their educational achievements; and when compared with
their minkaohan (民考漢) co-ethnics, they feel proud of their Uyghur identity
maintenance. The chapter concludes that this new Uyghur educational elite
stratum could not only create more Uyghur in-group discrimination in Xinjiang
but also add a new challenge for Uyghur-Han interethnic relations in China.
Research Method
The empirical data in this chapter has been gathered from a series of in-depth
individual and focus group interviews with twenty-two Xinjiangban university
graduates from different universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan,
Nanchang, and Wuxi in 2010. The selection of the interviewees was a legacy of
my previous ethnographic field study in one of the Xinjiangban host schools in
eastern China in 2003. I employed a “snowball” method for recruiting my inter-
viewees: firstly contacting several previous informants through email and QQ
(the most popular free instant messaging program, equivalent to Facebook),
and then following further recommendations through online social networks. I
then narrowed down the final interviewees in order to achieve the best balance
between gender, hometown, university major, and university location. During
the 2010 interviews, these fourth year university students (mostly final year)
Towards Another Minority Educational Elite Group in Xinjiang? 203
included nine female students and thirteen male students. Interviews lasted from
one to two hours and were conducted in Xinjiang restaurants (interviewees’
most preferred choice), fast food restaurants like KFC (commonly suggested by
Uyghur students), hotel rooms, or university dormitories.
During the interviews, I used open-ended questions to explore the Uyghur
Xinjiangban graduates’ general reflections on their high school, university, and
workplace experiences. The highlighted topics were their social networks and
interactions with other groups of people in daily life, such as fellow Uyghur uni-
versity students from non-Xinjiangban backgrounds, Han university students,
and workplace colleagues.
The main limitation of this research method lies in the personal relationship
between the students (the interviewees) and myself (the researcher). Due to my
lack of Uyghur language competency, we could only communicate in Chinese,
which hindered my understanding of the Uyghur language and cultural frames
that conditioned many of their responses. Moreover, having not been in fre-
quent contact with my informants, I became an “unfamiliar acquaintance,” and
gaining a comfortable rapport took time and effort. For example, sometimes
I felt embarrassed for mismatching my interviewee’s names due to a fading
memory. Similarly, some Uyghur students politely declined my invitations for
an interview. Nevertheless, in order to minimize the impact of these limitations
on data validity and credibility, I have grouped the data into different categories,
such as by city (first-tier cities Beijing and Shanghai vs. second-tier cities like
Wuxi, Nanchang and Wuhan), by hometowns (southern Xinjiang vs. northern
Xinjiang), as well as by gender (male graduates vs. female graduates), which were
rigorously cross-checked during my reading of the interview transcripts.
Uyghur Elites in China
In both sociology and politics, the term “elite” “refers to a minority group
which has power or influence over others and is recognized as being in some
way superior” (Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner 2000: 113). The classical elite
theorist Pareto explored the psychological and intellectual superiority that elites
obtain (Pareto 1971). Modern elite theorist Robert D. Putnam sees the devel-
opment of technical and exclusive knowledge among administrators and other
204 Chen Yangbin
specialist groups as a mechanism by which power is stripped from the demo-

cratic process and slips sideways to the advisors and specialists influencing
the decision-making process (Putnam 1976). He also put forward the concept
of a new elite in the contemporary world: “If the dominant figures of the past
hundred years have been the entrepreneur, the businessman, and the industrial
executive, the ‘new men’ are the scientists, the mathematicians, the economists,
and the engineers of the new intellectual technology” (Putnam 1977: 383).
Taken together, modern elites belong to a small group with higher educational
achievements and technical specialties. Being elite brings with it a sense of supe-
riority as well as a sense of representativeness for one’s own groups in society,
whether it is in terms of class or ethnicity. This sense of superiority can be gauged
by objective credentials, such as university degrees and other qualifications, and
is also accompanied by a subjective feeling of being advantaged over others. In
the contemporary world, elites are vital agents for representing the interests of
their broader groups. In a Chinese context, Sautman (1999a) claims that ethnic
minorities are still underrepresented among technical and professional person-
nel in contemporary China. Nonetheless he also emphasizes the role of educa-
tion in creating minority elite, acknowledging that “the growth in the minority
elite is the result of educational gains and preferential policies” (Sautman 1999a:
299).
Uyghur elites have been examined in some research on Xinjiang. Dreyer ana-
lyzes the Uyghur political elite in terms of the Communist Party of China (CPC)
and its political high-level organizations, and Sautman (1999a: 299) explores
how Saifudin and other Uyghur political elite found their niche in the CPC’s
hierarchy. Moreover, Uyghur educational elites have been increasingly studied on
the level of general technical and professional personnel, with minkaohan gradu-
ates most popularly discussed (Caprioni 2011; Smith 2000). Bovingdon (1998)
suggests that, as an elite group, Uyghur minkaohan students may be viewed as
superior in terms of their educational achievements and Chinese language pro-
ficiency, but they face a crisis in representing the Uyghur ethnic group, as they
lack any cultural recognition from their own ethnic group (Bovingdon 1998).
Moreover, when competing with their Han classmates, minkaohan graduates still
face challenges in finding employment in the market economy. Hannum and Yu
(1995) demonstrate that minorities in Xinjiang with a high school education or
better encounter more difficulties in securing good jobs than similarly educated
Han. Becquelin (2000) also highlights the discrimination faced by minority
graduates in the Xinjiang job market. Critical of this situation, Becquelin argues:
On the political level, a system that produces educated ethnic youths only
to prevent them from obtaining good jobs appears bound to alienate a
growing proportion of them. On the ideological level, the contradiction
between propaganda and reality is putting the ethnic-minority cadres and
elite in an increasingly awkward position, eroding their legitimacy and
their capacity to defend minority interests from within the state apparatus
(2000: 86).
Feeling Elite
This chapter argues that, as a new educational elite stratum, Xinjiangban gradu-
ates from inland universities generally have a strong pride in their educational
achievements and ethnic culture maintenance. They typically compare them-
selves with two other groups: minkaohan and minkaomin students from Xinjiang
who are now studying at inland universities. Compared with minkaomin students,
Xinjiangban graduates take great pride in their superior academic achievements
(especially in terms of their Mandarin competency), holding a cosmopolitan
vision and experiencing more interactions with Han people. Compared with
minkaohan students, Xinjiangban graduates feel superior in terms of maintaining
their Uyghur language and culture identity, while possessing a flexible attitude
towards mainstream culture and values.
We Are Different: Intellectual Superiority
Xinjiangban graduates possess a strong sense of intellectual superiority in con-

trast to the general Uyghur population, Uyghur businessmen in the east, and
Uyghur minkaomin graduates at inland universities. According to the Party-state,
the goals of the Xinjiangban is “to educate a group of high level, high school grad-
uates who possess ideals, morality, culture and discipline, and uphold national
unity while being dedicated to the Great Western Development Scheme” (MOE
2000a). As an “intellectual support to Xinjiang” from the east (MOE 2000b),
the policy aims “to accelerate the scientific and educational development in the
206 Chen Yangbin
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and to educate and train minority pro-
fessionals, and then enhance the economic development and social progress
of Xinjiang” (MOE 2000a). Considering the size of the Uyghur population of
10 million or so and the Xinjiang population of 21.8 million (The Six National
Population Census, 2010), the policy clearly aims to transform Xinjiangban stu-
dents into an educational elite group, and it is hoped that their university degrees
and expertise will result in significant social capital and human resource in the
high-end job market in Xinjiang. In addition, their trilingual abilities in Chinese,
English, and Uyghur, as well as their computer literacy are highly valued by many
employers in Xinjiang.
The group of Xinjiangban graduates that are the key informants for this chapter
originally came from three classes of around 120 students from one of the inland
schools in 2003. In 2007, when they completed their high school program, 115
students successfully secured enrollment in universities in the east.3 Among
them, only three students enrolled in the three-year associate bachelor degree
program (dazhuan 大專), while the vast majority were admitted to a four-year
or five-year (in the case of the medical sciences) bachelor program. Even more
impressively, seventy-two students gained admission to China’s most prestigious
universities.4 In contrast to the concern expressed by Sautman (1999a) about
the underrepresentation of minority elites in technical and professional fields,
most of the Xinjiangban graduates undertook technical and professional majors,
such as medical sciences (Chinese or Western), engineering, education, science
and technology, law, public administration, or marketing. The state’s educational
policies in Xinjiang and toward Uyghur students are complicated. Xinjiangban
students are mostly Uyghurs and are educated with Chinese as the medium of
instruction in inland cities. During the university entrance examinations, they
are examined in the same language (Chinese) with the same exam papers as their
Han counterparts in each city. But during the university admissions process,
affirmative action policy plays a key role. They are admitted to inland universi-
ties through much lower university entrance requirements (see chapters by Ma,
Zuliyati, and Leibold in this volume). Across the main inland cities, many key
universities have established special enrollment quotas for Xinjiangban gradu-
ates.5 As a result, Xinjiangban graduates strongly self-identify themselves as a
distinctive Uyghur educational elite group that is set apart from their minkaomin
and minkaohan co-ethnics. As one informant explained:
During the university entrance examination, there was a category of appli-
cation designated for Xinjiangban students. We attended the examinations
in Jiangsu Province. Last time I tried to search my name online in Baidu (百
度),6 the results did not show me as a minkaohan or minkaomin student but
only as a Xinjiang neigaoban graduate . . . we just call ourselves Xinjiangban
graduates. Now this is a new concept. It is enough to call me someone from
the Xinjiangban (M, Uyghur male graduate in Tianjin).
Moreover, Xinjiangban graduates at the inland universities also deliberately

differentiate themselves from other Uyghur migrants living in the east, such as
small businessmen, Xinjiang restaurant owners, and particularly those so-called
Uyghur thieves (weizu xiaotou 維族小偷) who are reported to plague the streets
and public transport of major urban centers in the east. Here the Han people’s
common social image of the Uyghurs is by no means positive, leading Uyghur
migrants to constantly resist these sorts of base stereotypes (Iredale et al. 2001;
Baranovitch 2003). Most interviewees, being both Uyghur and university
students from Xinjiang, complained of strong social pressure of implicit asso-
ciations with less educationally successful Uyghur migrants seen on public trans-
portation or in shops by local people. Although they share a common ethnicity,
Xinjiangban graduates strongly differentiate themselves from Uyghur migrants,
and perceive themselves as possessing a higher suzhi (素質, literally “quality”),
a term commonly used to refer to one’s educational background, social status,
and social habits. As one Uyghur female student in Shanghai and her Uyghur
boyfriend told me:
I also do not trust Uyghurs in society in the east. If I were to meet one
American, one Han person, and one Uyghur person in an unfamiliar
encounter, I would feel the most distance with the Uyghur person. Possibly,
this is due to the influence of society’s general views on Uyghurs, as this
society literally judges these people in that way. We would not necessarily
take it for granted that they are our countrymen just because they also come
from Xinjiang.
On the one hand, this sense of alienation reflects Xinjiangban graduates’ inter-
nalization of mainstream society’s prevailing and negative stereotypes towards
Uyghur people. On the other hand, it also highlights Xinjiangban graduates’
208 Chen Yangbin
sense of superiority in terms of their highly successful educational achievement

when compared to their co-ethnics.
Yet, the Xinjiangban graduates’ most significant identity boundary serves to
demarcate them from Uyghur and other ethnic group minkaomin students at
inland universities.7 When compared to these students, Xinjiangban graduates
stress their advantages, such as a more cosmopolitan vision, easier adaptation to
inland life, greater sense of independence and diligence, as well as a better quality
university education. Xinjiangban graduates believe that their longer period of
inland residence has nurtured them with a more cosmopolitan outlook, which
makes it easier for them to adapt to an inland lifestyle and results in a more
“rational” view about Han people. “We generally can adapt to life at inland uni-
versities faster than those minkaohan graduates from Xinjiang” (M, Uyghur male
student from Tianjin). He also went on to comment:
We are more rational in our thinking, but they [minkaomin students] have
a stronger ethnic consciousness, and are more narrow-minded. But we are
more rational. I can’t figure out what it is exactly. I reckon that it is related to
one’s views about social problems.
Similarly, another Uyghur female interviewee stated:
We have different ways of thinking. For example, a single dormitory room

is a united unit; and does not only include us. She [a Uyghur minkaomin
graduate] might think she is a very special person, and that her roommates
must accommodate her. Yet I tend to think that this is a big collective unit,
and I must accommodate others. This is quite a stark difference (M, Uyghur
female student in Beijing).
Many of these differences reflect different schooling experiences: with

Xinjiangban students moving from one inland school to another while minkao
min students are still adjusting from moving to their first inland school from
Xinjiang. One female Xinjiangban graduate argued that, “the ideology and con-
sciousness of minkaomin graduates will not change radically” (Z, female student
in Beijing).
Furthermore, Xinjiangban graduates pride themselves in being diligent, inde-
pendent, and broad-minded. In contrast, they invariably see minkaomin gradu-
ates as lazy, dependent on their parents, and narrow-minded. One participant
noted:
If we look back at our four-year experience in the Xinjiangban, everything

had to be done by ourselves, using our own brains. When compared with
university students from Xinjiang, such as minzuban [minority] students,
we are more independent. I feel we have different ways of thinking. They are
lazy and feeble-minded. If you spend some time with them, you realize that
you are no longer used to being with them. I would rather hang around with
people with a higher level of thinking and more vision. I will ruin myself if I
hang out with them (T, female graduate in Shanghai).
Others echoed these claims of superiority, such as a Uyghur male interviewee

who stated: “My family wants me to stay alongside them, and for me to find a job
in the government sector in my hometown. Yet, I do not want to do this; I want
to go out and have a go at things” (A, Uyghur male Xinjiang graduate in Beijing).
Another interviewee painted a vivid description on this sense of distinctive-
ness: “We do not share common interests anymore. I would probably talk about
Barack Obama’s [inauguration] speech, while they will probably talk about how
much money they have earned” (Y, Uyghur male graduate in Shanghai).
We Are still Uyghur: Group Representativeness in Religion, Language,

and Food
Besides a sense of superiority, another key issue for these new Uyghur elites is
their sense of belonging and representativeness of a broader sense of Uyghur
identity. Although their sense of Uyghur-ness has undergone transformation
and constant refinement since moving inland, Xinjiangban graduates still firmly
but flexibly maintain their Uyghur and Xinjiang identities, which normally are
marked by their language, religion, and food preferences. My previous eth-
nography argued that Xinjiangban students have a strong sense of obligation
towards their families, Xinjiang, and the larger Uyghur community during their
high-school experience (Chen 2008). This sense of obligation persists through-
out their university life, although in a more practical, self-centered fashion, as
described by one of my informants:
We have a stronger sense of obligation [towards Uyghur people] compared
with local students. I have a senior Uyghur friend at university. He always
says: “Don’t say you want to improve [the educational development of] our
ethnic group. Rather what you can do is look after your own things, and
210 Chen Yangbin
then properly educate your own child, making sure they have a good edu-
cation, and a good moral attitude. Just do this and then you show strong
obligations.” What he says is absolutely right! (M, Uyghur male graduate
in Tianjin)
In terms of religious belief, being Uyghur traditionally means being Muslim.

After spending a prolonged time at inland schools, the religiosity of Xinjiangban
graduates tends to dichotomize: causing it to either strengthen or wane.
Xinjiangban graduates, particularly male graduates, tend to hold a straightfor-
ward but practical attitude in acknowledging their Muslim identity, which obvi-
ously provides them with a stronger cultural legitimacy in representing their
ethnic group. “People around you are all Muslims. As soon as you are born,
you discover that everyone around you is Muslim” (T, Uyghur male graduate
in Tianjin). Yet, their Muslim identity must now adapt to the dominant non-
Muslim environment of their universities. Thus, being a Uyghur Muslim at an
inland school means being able to compromise on one’s religious practices. As
one female interviewee put it, “I believe in [the Islamic] religion, and I am proud
of this religion. When I was in junior high school, I was a Muslim. I could be, but
I would not pray at the school, as that would be going too far” (A, Uyghur female
graduate in Shanghai). Unlike many universities in Australia or the United States,
mainstream Chinese universities are non-religious and it would be unheard
of them to set up prayer rooms for Muslim students. For many of them, even
observing the Ramadan fast is difficult (see Grose, this volume), let alone daily
prayers. Islamic religious practices are definitely not facilitated or officially sanc-
tioned at non-minzu tertiary institutions.
The nature of the environment has even encouraged some Uyghur graduates
to convert to Christianity, which while not officially sanctioned on university
campuses remains more commonly practiced. For most Uyghurs, Christianity is
a highly taboo topic but there are reports of a small number of Uyghur Christians
in Xinjiang (Xinjiang Far West China, 2010). One of my female informants in
Shanghai revealed to me that she and several of her Uyghur classmates had con-
verted to Christianity. She even gave me a popular Christianity reader as a gift
during our interview. This case, albeit very rare, demonstrates the strong impact
a lengthy immersion in a non-Muslim community can have on students’ world-
view during their formative years. For most of my informants, their connections
with Uyghur family and community members had been severed for at least eight
years, causing many of them to either attenuate or even abandon their Islamic
religion affiliation. But this shift in religious identity does not necessarily come
at the expense of their sense of Uyghur-ness, as the same Shanghai interviewee
stressed to me: “I am Christian now, but I am still Uyghur!”
For many Xinjiangban graduates, language maintenance remains one of
the key markers of Uyghur identity. To this end, they tend to compare them-
selves with Uyghur minkaohan graduates from Xinjiang. All my interviewees
downplayed the minkaohan graduates’ legitimacy in representing Uyghur-ness
(Bovingdon 1998; Zuliyati 2009). As evidence they pointed to the “fact” that
minkaohan students always flock together and unconsciously speak Chinese, even
when socializing with other Uyghur students. In contrast, Xinjiangban graduates
consider themselves more flexible and adept at language switching, speaking
Uyghur with Uyghurs and Chinese with Han. For some Xinjiangban graduates,
the maintenance of the Uyghur language is closely associated with keeping their
Islamic affiliation, with one informant stating: “If you speak Uyghur, you must
believe in Islam” (T, Uyghur male graduate in Tianjin).
Lastly, most of my interviewees suggested that it was difficult to maintain
their ethnic clothing, festivals, and religious activities in the Han-dominant
schools of the east. As a result, like the Uyghur language, food becomes a proxy
for other elements of Uyghur identity. For many Xinjiangban graduates, dietary
restrictions function as the last, inner boundary of their sense of Uyghur-ness.
Like one interviewee suggested: “Food is also about religion” (M, Uyghur male
graduate from Tianjin). Yet, for most Han, it is the physical appearance of the
Uyghur graduates that renders them far more visible (and arguably discrimi-
nated against) as a minority group when compared to the Muslim Hui who share
similar food restrictions.
The challenges associated with halal (qingzhen 清真) food permeates
Xinjiangban graduates’ university dormitories, workplaces, and encounters with
local society. Fortunately, for some, these issues are dealt with up front, prevent-
ing any misunderstandings with Han students in their dormitory rooms. As one
participant stated:
When I moved into my dormitory room, I explained Islam food require-
ments to my fellow Han students. We had four students in one room, and
212 Chen Yangbin
one moved out later. I was the first Uyghur that they encountered. In the
beginning, they often ate all sorts of non-halal food. I saw that, but I would
not say anything. They left the food on the table. But eventually they felt
embarrassed [and changed their habits] (M, male student from Tianjin).
However, for others, food poses a more serious challenge in their workplaces.
Several of the Xinjiangban graduates are now undertaking internships in compa-
nies and work units (danwei 單位) in the east, where the majority of their col-
leagues and superiors are Han and lack any cultural awareness about halal food.
What they do generally understand is that Uyghurs do not eat pork. However,
the rules surrounding halal food are more complicated. The most common mis-
conception is that vegetables cooked in vegetable oil are fine for Uyghur. As one
participant put it:
The problem is basically not manageable, but has to be managed. This is a
problem of mutual understanding. People in my workplace are all highly
educated with good suzhi. There are no low (social-economic) level people.
They attempt to accommodate me, and provide me with options, but
[sometimes] I have no solution. We are very strict about food, and not only
prohibited from eating pork. Sometimes our Han dormitory mates ate an
egg in the room, and that is not acceptable as well. Because any food cooked
in a non-halal wok becomes non-halal food. Food is a problem that is often
very hard to deal with. But nowadays it is getting earlier as there are Muslim
hand-stretched noodle restaurants everywhere. If I want to stay in Shanghai,
the only problem will be food (Y, Uyghur male graduate in Shanghai).
In terms of career development, official government policy is “to encourage

[Xinjiangban] students to return to Xinjiang but also to allow them to seek jobs
inland” (Xinjiangban Management Office, 2010). Most of the graduates prefer
to go back to Xinjiang due to the familiar environment, better social networks,
and more opportunities in finding a suitable job. Yet, many also feel the lure of
job opportunities and better pay from inland cities. For those who hope to stay
out east, Beijing and Shanghai are the most popular destinations as these mega-
metropolises offer more halal food options, followed by Lanzhou and Xi’an, two
cities with large Muslim populations, or Yiwu in Zhejiang Province, a small but
economically vibrant city with an increasing number of overseas Muslim busi-
nessmen. Yet, practical food issues are likely to remain a big problem for those
Xinjiangban graduates who seek to develop their career in the east. A female
Xinjiangban graduate described to me her own dilemma between food and job
prospects in Shanghai:
I currently have an internship with the Kraft Food Company in Shanghai.
During my interview, Kraft staff members were quite considerate of me.
“Then how do you deal with food issues?” they asked me. No food, no
work. What is my problem now? How do I develop my career: this problem
is also a food problem, and a social networking problem. I have an oppor-
tunity to stay at Kraft. There is only one internship student in the office of
Development and Research. I should build up rapport with my colleagues,
but I cannot take them to KFC to eat. I think this is a practical issue. I have
been thinking about this for quite a few days. I have not asked others for
answers. . . . I could say, hey, boss, let us go to Afanti (阿凡提) [a popular
halal restaurant]. But that would offend them. This is the key issue.
She continued:
Once, during lunchtime, my supervisor invited all us colleagues out to eat. I

said I brought my own food, and that I do not eat pork. This is my lifestyle.
This answer seemed to embarrass him. He was not angry, but felt very disap-
pointed. This is the first time that Kraft Shanghai had an intern student who
was an ethnic minority. Normally work is undertaken while eating. People
eat and talk about work. For example, ‘let us talk about that during meal
time.’ This is a very annoying problem (T, female graduate in Shanghai).
Towards a New Uyghur Educational Elite Group in Xinjiang
China is best seen as dominated not by an ethnic group, but by a social elite
of cadres, intellectuals, and, increasingly, business people, who espouse
a particular model of culture—socialist, modern, educated, Chinese—
whose content is that of the standardized national culture called, in a short-
hand way, Han culture, or Hanzu wenhua (Harrell 2001: 308).
Harrell’s statement above suggests that training ethnic minority elite through a
standardized national culture is an important vehicle for maintaining the CPC’s
rule. However, in the case of Uyghur graduates of the Xinjiangban program,
this top-down and outside-in strategy is not without complications as ethnic,
national, and cultural identities, like other forms of identity, are multiple and
situationally constructed, and can fracture in unexpected ways. As discussed in
this chapter, Xinjiangban graduates’ feelings of academic superiority and strong
214 Chen Yangbin
sense of Uyghur representativeness in relation to their co-ethnics creates new

problems for Uyghur in-group and Han-Uyghur intergroup relations.
One problem is related to the conditionality of Xinjiangban graduates’ aca-
demic superiority. As new Uyghur educational elite, their sense of intellectual
superiority is a consequence of two indispensable factors: the state’s preferential
educational policies for ethnic minorities and the Uyghur graduates’ own hard
work and personal sacrifice. Within China, Xinjiang’s socioeconomic develop-
ment continues to lag behind that of the more developed provinces along the
eastern coast, and, relatively speaking, the cultural and political situation in
Xinjiang is far more complicated than Han-dominant regions in the east. These
characteristics have helped to shape the state’s educational preferential policy
towards the Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang, and the
policy of dislocated Xinjiangban schools is one of the central government’s
more successful affirmative action policies. In recent years, the efficacy of minor-
ity preferential policies has been questioned by some within Chinese society
(Leibold, this volume; W. Wang 2009), yet all of my interviewees agree that the
policies have played a fundamental role in their academic achievements.
In the long term, Postiglione doubts the sustainability of the dislocated minor-
ity schools, mainly due to the challenges of finding suitable employment for all
their graduates (Postiglione and Jiao 2009). In the case of the Inland Tibetan
Schools, the increasing difficulties of securing appropriate jobs for graduates
have led to reduced interest from parents and new applicants. The most available
jobs for both Tibetan and Uyghur inland graduates are bilingual teaching jobs
in Xinjiang and Tibetan schools. With the acceleration of bilingual education in
Xinjiang, these sorts of teaching opportunities are abundant but the low pay and
often remote locations mean they attract little interest among Xinjiangban gradu-
ates. Through their experiences in dislocated schools, graduates’ expectations in
terms of career development are high, and the ultimate success and sustainability
of the policy will be determined by the ability of its graduates to transform their
feelings of educational superiority into actual social and economic capital in the
job market. Thus far, however, this process is far from complete, and the find-
ings from this study reveal that many graduates feel uncertain about their job
prospects, both in Xinjiang, due to poor wages and a limited social network, and
inland cities like Shanghai and Beijing, where the competition from Han gradu-
ates is stiff and cultural issues can make life more challenging.
Another major concern that surfaces from the research on these dislocated
schools relates to the psychological impacts of this form of schooling. The gradu-
ates I have spoken to acknowledge the importance of diligence, independence,
and adaptability during their schooling journey, and although they eventually
survived the rigid academic competition of inland schools, many interviewees
had regrets about the severe personal crises they endured in their personal and
family lives during these crucial adolescent years. One of my informants told me
of the tragic story of a top-performing Uyghur female student who was admitted
to the College of Medicine at Fudan University in Shanghai, only to break down
with schizophrenia during her time at university. To make matters worse, her
parents refused to look after her, and complained: “You [the Xinjiangban] took
our daughter away, and now you must look after her!” The long-term impacts
of this period of detachment from one’s family and community have yet to be
fully scrutinized and must be considered when evaluating the effectiveness of the
policy.
Furthermore, Xinjiangban graduates’ ideas about their ethnic representative-
ness also need to be questioned. While they show clear self-identification as
an elite group and display a strong willingness to represent the Uyghur ethnic
group, this self-perception is not necessarily recognized by the broader Uyghur
community and instead can actually foster in-group discrimination. In fact, this
study suggests that as a new educational elite Xinjiangban graduates create in-
group divisions that are potentially detrimental to intra-ethnic solidarity among
the Uyghurs.
The problem of in-group discrimination arises among the general Uyghur
population. When gauged by their higher education qualifications, Uyghurs can
be grouped into either the “masses” or “elite” categories just like any other ethnic
group in China. Previous studies further separate the traditional Uyghur elite into
minkaomin and minkaohan categories. My findings reveal that the Xinjiangban
graduates’ feeling of superiority is in-turn accompanied by in-group discrimi-
nation, and a disparaging attitude toward other Uyghur sub-groups, including
distrust of Uyghur voluntary or involuntary migrants, criticism of minkaomin
students’ narrow-mindedness, and accusation about the failure of minkaohan
216 Chen Yangbin
students in maintaining their culture and language. These attitudes alienate this
new educational elite from their co-ethnics (not to mention other social groups)
and thus are potentially detrimental to social cohesion. The problem of in-group
discrimination has been largely overlooked in race and ethnic studies, with most
studies exploring how second generation immigrants differentiate and discrimi-
nate against their parents’ generation (cf. Wong 2011). In the case of Xinjiangban
graduates, in-group discrimination is more spatial than generational, driven by
the large-scale institutionalization of dislocated schools for Uyghur students that
literally walls participants (at least initially) off from their co-ethnics and larger
Han society. The impact of this process on group and national solidarity requires
further research.
In addition, this new elite’s ethnic representativeness needs to be evaluated
from two angles: that of both the elite itself and their co-ethnics back in Xinjiang.
While Xinjiangban graduates’ in-group discrimination will likely hinder their
representativeness in the eyes of ordinary Uyghurs back in Xinjiang, the atti-
tudes of different Uyghur groups to them is beyond the scope of this chapter but
certainly in need of further research. How are Xinjiangban graduates viewed by
other Uyghur elites—minkaomin, minkaohan, and Uyghur business and politi-
cal elites—and the wider Uyghur community? To what extent are they viewed
as genuine representatives of Uyghur culture, language, and tradition? The
Xinjiangban graduates’ sense of superiority and distinctiveness suggests that
other community groups might have difficulty relating to them.
It is common when speaking about ethnic groups in Xinjiang to hear one of
two statements: (1) the fact that 47 out of China’s 56 officially classified ethnic
groups can be found in Xinjiang, or (2) that 13 of these ethnic groups are
indigenous to Xinjiang (Chao 2005). Xinjiangban graduates are all aware that
Uyghur minkaohan graduates are commonly joked to be the fourteenth indig-
enous ethnic group in Xinjiang (Zuliyati 2009); it is unclear how they would
position themselves within Xinjiang and its Uyghur community. When I asked
them whether they related to any of the usual labels as either the “thirteenth
ethnic group” (Uyghur), the “fourteenth ethnic group” (Uyghur minkaohan)
or even a sort of new “fifteenth ethnic group”, most of them figuratively viewed
the Xinjiangban graduates as a hybrid, a sort of “13.5 indigenous ethnic group”
in Xinjiang, awkwardly placed in-between the thirteenth (minkaomin) and
fourteenth (minkaohan) groups while rejecting any new category such as the “fif-
teenth ethnic group.” The social dislocation of this hybrid 13.5 metaphor echoes
Robert Park’s notion of “the marginal man,” as Park explained nearly a century
ago in relation to ethnic immigrants in the United States:
There appeared a new type of personality, namely, a cultural hybrid, a man
living and sharing intimately in the cultural life and traditions of two dis-
tinct peoples; never quite willing to break, even if he were permitted to do
so, with his past and his traditions, and not quite accepted, because of racial
prejudice, in the new society in which he now sought to ﬁnd a place. He was
a man on the margin of two cultures and two societies, which never com-
pletely interpenetrated and fused (Park 1928: 892).
In the case of men and women Xinjiangban graduates, the social dislocation that
is so much a part of their schooling journey likely produces this feeling of ethnic
marginality, leaving their place within both Xinjiang and the wider Chinese
society in limbo.
This stage of marginality is not without some positive connotations, such
as the intention to maintain Uyghur culture and identity while simultaneously
adapting to mainstream culture and society. Many Xinjiangban graduates have
been able to make food and dietary restrictions a proxy for other aspects of
Uyghur-ness (religiosity, cultural customs, and even language), which have been
eroded through their dislocated education, confirming the centrality of food to
Uyghur identity (Cesaro 2000). For most, the availability of halal food is a key
requirement for the acceptance of any job in the east, with many stating that
they would rather return to Xinjiang and accept a lower paying job than com-
promise on their dietary restrictions. In addition, compared to minkaomin stu-
dents, Xinjiangban graduates possess far better Chinese language skills due to
their longer exposure to mainstream society, although it tends to come at the
expense (for at least some students) of their command of Uyghur language and
literature. In terms of language learning and maintenance, they position them-
selves halfway between minkaomin and minkaohan students. When they socialize
with Uyghurs, they are still accustomed to speaking Uyghur, while minkaohan
students tend to feel more comfortable in Chinese. As a result they are highly
critical of minkaohan graduates for losing their Uyghur language ability, which
reinforces their perception of themselves as upholding the Uyghur culture and
218 Chen Yangbin
language. Finally, thus far the data reveals that Xinjiangban graduates are remark-
ably adaptive when it comes to navigating mainstream Han culture and society,
and that they perceive themselves as holding more rational and less discrimina-
tory attitudes toward Han people.
Yet, their state of marginality is not without its problems. As Bergmann
(1988: 148) notes when discussing the work of Robert Park and his student and
colleague Everett Stonequist:
Park and Stonequist concentrated above all on the psychic consequences
of the marginal situation for the marginal man (insecurity, ambivalence),
and on the mechanisms of defense and compensation (excessive conform-
ity, exaggerated self-confidence, attempts at counter stigmatization and at
legitimization) . . .
Here, we find many of the negative characteristics of marginality among the

Xinjiangban graduates. The mechanisms of defense and compensation are
reflected in the way graduates draw a clear line of distinction between themselves
and Uyghur migrants or poorer educated Uyghurs. Moreover, ambivalence and
hyper-sensitiveness are also apparent in their self-identification with the hybrid
“13.5 ethnic group” category, and their eagerness to be viewed as representatives
and leaders of their ethnic community. During my interviews, it was striking that
Xinjiangban graduates felt more comfortable comparing themselves with other
Uyghur graduates, either minkaomin or minkaohan, rather than the Han majority,
neither those in Xinjiang nor in the inland cities where they were studying. This
hints at a troubling sense of insecurity and inferiority when compared with the
Han majority, with all of my participants agreeing that they could never match
the educational achievements of their Han classmates without the state’s prefer-
ential treatment polices.
Conclusion
From the perspective of human capital, a new group of would-be Uyghur educa-
tional elite has taken shape in recent years, which consists of more than 13,000
Xinjiangban graduates. There is no doubt that these young Uyghur graduates,
with their specialties in a variety of fields, will reshape the socioeconomic devel-
opment and political-cultural status quo in Xinjiang. Of course, like graduates
of the Inland Tibetan Schools (Postiglione 2009a; Postiglione and Jiao 2009),
Xinjiangban graduates will also face challenges as many of them relocate and
readjust back into Uyghur life in Xinjiang. As discussed, many of them are
anxious, concerned about finding work, and feeling cultural uncertainty about
going back to Xinjiang after eight-plus years away. Back home, they will have to
“re-learn” what it means to be Uyghur in a new geographic setting, dealing once
again with food and language issues (Chen 2008), but also new religious issues
such as Koran reading, mosque attendance, prohibitions on Islam and CPC
membership. Many will surely succeed; others will struggle. The Party-state
hopes that as a collective unit they will contribute to Xinjiang’s “leap-frog” eco-
nomic development while strengthening national unity.
Yet, like China’s other social and political problems, rapid development
(whether economic or educational) offers no panacea for ethnic problems,
which have always been deeply entangled with deep-rooted historical, politi-
cal, social, and cultural strands. The rapid expansion of Xinjiangban enrollments
has escaped proper scrutiny as it relates to these complex factors, with problems
already arising in relation to employment, in-group discrimination, and the psy-
chological marginality of these graduates of dislocated schooling. The process of
creating a new Uyghur educational elite group is a circuitous and difficult one,
as it involves the seesaw struggle between upward social mobility within main-
stream Han society and maintenance of some sort of authentic Uyghur identity,
thus requiring a constant re-defining of Uyghur-ness and re-positioning within
both the Uyghur community and larger society.
10
Uyghur University Students and
Ramadan
Challenging the Minkaomin/Minkaohan Labels
Timothy Grose1
On the eve of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan (Uy. ramizan) September
2006, I shared lunch with two Uyghur friends at one of the several Xinjiang-style
restaurants adjacent to Beijing’s Minzu University of China (MUC).2 During
our meal, my friends made a surprising confession: they would not observe the
Ramadan fast (Uy. roza tutmaq).3 Considering Beijing’s relaxed political climate
compared to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), a climate
that would allow Uyghur university students to fast without repercussion,4 my
friends’ decisions confounded me. Why did these two particular Uyghur stu-
dents choose not to observe the thirty-day fast, which, as one of the five pillars of
Islam, is obligatory for healthy, adult Muslims?
After puzzling over this matter, I prematurely concluded that my friends’
decisions appeared logical enough. Of course these two young Uyghurs would
not observe the Ramadan fast. Before matriculating at MUC, these individuals
attended “Chinese” middle (zhongxue 中學) and senior-secondary (gaozhong
高中) schools; schools in which minority students attend class and take their
college entrance examinations (gaokao 高考) using the Chinese language. These
students are commonly referred to as minkaohan (民考漢), as opposed to those
minority students who study in a minority language, known as minkaomin (民考
民). My two friends’ decisions appeared to add to the litany of stereotypes com-
monly attributed to minkaohan Uyghurs. Since these two particular individuals,
as minkaohan students, had achieved a high level of competency in Chinese, were
capable of speaking Putonghua with perfect tones (though spoke in Uyghur to
each other), and, unlike some of their peers, did not adorn doppa, atlas, or any
222 Timothy Grose
other clothes commonly associated with Uyghurs, it was predictable they would
not fast during Ramadan. Or was it?
This chapter seeks to complicate the minkaomin/minkaohan categories and
blur the perceived divisions among young Uyghurs. Closely connected to this
objective, I urge us to look beyond the minkaomin/minkaohan binary in order
to better evaluate the ethnonational identities of Uyghur youth. By proposing
a reevaluation of minkaomin and minkaohan Uyghurs, I am contesting recent
scholarship that has pointed to a possible link between the erosion of a dis-
tinctly “Uyghur” ethnonational identity and the steady increase of Chinese-
medium schools in Xinjiang’s state-regulated education system (Dwyer 2005:
38; Kaltman 2007: 16–17; Rudelson 1997: 127–29; Smith 2002; Smith-Finley
2007; Taynen 2006).
Rather than reifying the minkaomin/minkaohan labels, this chapter highlights
the subtle nuances of Uyghur identity, especially the ways young Uyghurs express
the Islamic underpinnings of their ethnonational identity. As I will describe
below, the Communist Party of China (CPC), in an apparent attempt to uproot
a Uyghur ethnonational identity grounded in Islamic culture, has implemented
a series of policies both within and outside the realm of state-sponsored edu-
cation aimed at curbing many Islamic practices. However, the efficacy of these
policies is not guaranteed. Drawing attention to the fact that both minkaomin
and minkaohan students observe the Ramadan fast, I contend that the religious
practices of young Uyghurs—practices that provide a window into how these
individuals assert Uyghur identity—may have little to do with young Uyghurs’
secondary education. Instead, the decision to fast during Ramadan, similar to
other expressions of Uyghur-ness, can best be understood as emerging from a
complex set of negotiations. Here Uyghur students must simultaneously engage
with the hegemonic discourse on religion transmitted by the CPC, their families
and upbringing, and their personal strategies for socioeconomic advancement.
Methodology and Limitations
This chapter draws on interviews and dietary journals recorded by Uyghur

university students in Beijing. With the help of a Uyghur research assistant, I
recruited Uyghur students to keep dietary journals during Ramadan, September
Uyghur University Students and Ramadan 223
24 through October 21, 2006.5 I instructed participants to record meal times and
to write brief descriptions of what they ate and drank. In addition to recording
details about their meals, I asked respondents to provide basic information about
themselves including their hometowns, whether they were educated in minka-
omin or minkaohan schools, their college majors, and their parents’ occupations.
Upon the completion of Ramadan, I collected the journals and analyzed the
data. Follow-up interviews were conducted with three students in 2006. During
Ramadan 2010, I conducted multiple interviews with three additional Uyghur
students, students who were not part of the original study;6 these students did
not maintain dietary journals. In order to maintain the anonymity of my inform-
ants, I use pseudonyms throughout this chapter.
There are some limitations of this study. To begin, the number of partici-
pants is small. Only twenty-five students are included in this study, and female
participants outnumber male two-to-one. The political sensitivity surrounding
a study about religious practice in China can partially explain the small sample
size. Certainly, compared to Xinjiang, Beijing’s populace enjoys greater freedom
to openly engage in religious activities. Nonetheless, religion as a topic of daily
conversation is still largely taboo in the PRC, and some participants were appre-
hensive or unwilling to describe their religious practices to a foreign researcher.
Considering these limitations, this study can only offer preliminary conclusions.
This is also an appropriate place to discuss an important implication of this
study, namely that being Muslim is an inherent part of Uyghur identity. There
is no simple justification for this assertion. In fact, prior to Islam’s arrival to the
Tarim Basin in the tenth century and the eventual conversion of the region during
the seventeenth century, the sedentary peoples of the Tarim Basin professed
several religious traditions including Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, and
Buddhism.7 However, since the seventeenth-century and extending into China’s
Reform Era, Islam has been a salient marker of identity among the Turkic-
speaking oasis dwellers of the Tarim Basin (Bellér-Hann 2008; Newby 2007;
Rudelson 1997). Even today, the vast majority of Uyghurs adhere to at least
some Islamic tenets. Drawing on her experiences in the XUAR, Arienne Dwyer
(2005: 3) elaborates:
While virtually all Uyghurs identify themselves as Muslims, what being
Muslim entails varies considerably depending on locale and education . . .
224 Timothy Grose
[However] for both urban and rural Uyghurs, ethnic identity is linked with
religious and linguistic identity.
In other words, the shared belief in Islam, along with the Uyghur language,
have (over time) cemented a collective identity for the Uyghurs (Newby 2007),
and oftentimes Uyghur ethnonational identity and Islam are closely intertwined.
This is especially true among young, urban Uyghurs—as Chen Yangbin’s chapter
in this volume makes clear—who often define themselves in opposition to the
non-Muslim Han Chinese (see also Smith 2000: 200).
Minzu Identity in the PRC
As modern nation-states were built on top of the rubble of fallen empires, social
theorists began to recognize the role that the state plays in the construction of
national and ethnic identities. In one such example, Pierre Bourdieu (1999:
220–28) has proposed that regional identities should be understood as the prod-
ucts of performance. Although Bourdieu does not address ethnonational identi-
ties specifically, his ideas are transferable to the current discussion. For Bourdieu
(1999: 223–24), the categorization of people based on regional or, in this case,
perceived ethnic differences, and the identities subsequently emerging from
these categories, are reified through “officializing” acts. In other words, the prac-
tice of demarcating and institutionalizing boundaries brings ethnic groups into
existence.
Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper (2000) have expounded on
Bourdieu’s basic premise. Brubaker and Cooper (2000: 16) single out the state
as a “powerful identifier” of ethnonational groups because the state controls “the
material and symbolic resources to impose the categories, classificatory schemes,
and modes of social counting . . . to which non-state actors must refer.” Although
Brubaker (2002: 166) cautions against treating ethnonational groups as coher-
ent and homogenous social units, like Bourdieu, he recognizes ethnonational
groups as products of social practice. That is, the state, acting as an “ethnopo-
litical entrepreneur,” can effectively “summon, justify, [and] mobilize” ethnic
groups into being.
To be sure, the state does not determine ethnonational identity exclusively,
and every identity the state attempts to construct can be contested (Brubaker
and Cooper 2000: 16). According to Brubaker (1995: 113) the construction of
ethnonational identities may be best understood:
In terms of the field of differentiated and competitive positions or stances
[emphasis in the original] adopted by different organizations . . . or indi-
vidual political entrepreneurs, each seeking to “represent” the minority to
its own putative members, to the host state, or to the outside world, each
seeking to monopolize the legitimate representation of the group.
As such, ethnonational groups should not be understood as ancient, natural, and

enduring, nor are ethnonational identities static. Rather, both are forged through
a dialogical process between the state and members of the ethnonational group
in question, as well as within an ethnonational group itself (Brubaker 1995:
108–13).
Theoretical models that explain the construction of ethnonational iden-
tity as a series of negotiations between ethnonational groups and the state are
often applied to discussions about minzu (民族, ethnonational group) identity
in the People’s Republic of China.8 The PRC provides an example of a modern
nation-state whose government institutionalizes ethnonational identities and
then ascribes these identities to its citizens. After the first census of the newly
founded People’s Republic of China in 1953, “identification teams” composed
of linguists, anthropologists, and historians were dispatched by the CPC to areas
where substantial populations of potential non-Han peoples lived. Guided by
Stalin’s theory of ethnic identification, which groups people based on the sharing
of a common language, territory, economic means, and culture, these “identifica-
tion teams” measured what “ethnic potential” (minzu jituan 民族集團), or what
Thomas Mullaney (2011: 84) describes as “the potential for a cluster of smaller
groups to come into a state of unity despite differences in the present,” a group
possessed. “Identification teams” recorded the daily routines, religious beliefs,
and local histories of peoples who claimed non-Han status, and after decades of
deliberation for some cases, the CPC concluded that China is home to fifty-six
distinct minzu.
This is not to say that the ethnonational identities of China’s fifty-six recog-
nized minzu are determined exclusively by the Chinese Party-state. Indeed,
recent studies have proven that minority minzu have exercised active roles in this
construction process, and these identities have taken on new, collective meaning
226 Timothy Grose
and sentimental attachment since their construction and institutionalization by

the state (Gillette 2000; Harrell and Li 2003; McCarthy 2009; Schein 1997).
However, because ethnonational identities are often fluid, changing, and can be
contested, a point of contention between many of China’s ethnic minorities and
the CPC is the degree to which minority minzu identities are delineated by reli-
gion, a potential vehicle for collective resistance. For the CPC, perhaps the most
valuable tool wielded in an attempt to construct ethnonational identities which
do not supersede membership to the “Chinese nation” (Zhonghua minzu 中華
民族) is the state education system (Hansen 1999a).
Islam as a Contested Marker of Uyghur Identity
Indeed, CPC officials are acutely aware of the potential threat an ethnonational
identity, when infused with organized religion, can pose for maintaining social
stability in China. To combat this threat, the CPC only promotes atheism in
its nationalized curriculum. Article 8 of the “Education Law of the People’s
Republic of China,” adopted in 1995, stipulates that “the state shall separate edu-
cation from religion [and] no organization or individual may employ religion to
obstruct activities of the state education system” (MOE 1995). Similar policies
instruct:
It is banned to preach religion or instill religious ideas into students, to force
students to follow a religion, to suspend class for collective religious activi-
ties, to put religious teachings into the curriculum, to give religious lectures,
or to use religion to interfere or disrupt normal teaching order in schools
(Li 2005: 198).
Although the above policies are strictly enforced in public schools, outside of
the state education system religious policy (zongjiao zhengce 宗教政策) is not
implemented uniformly. Officials operating at local and provincial-level religious
affairs bureaus allow varying degrees of leniency for minority children to practice
religion publicly. Recent research conducted among Hui communities in Xi’an,
Ningxia, and Yunnan indicates that Islamic education in the form of private
Qur’anic schools (mektep) does not only persist in post-Mao China, but is, in
fact, thriving (Allès et al. 2003: 22–24; Gillette 2000: 84–85; Gladney 1999: 82;
McCarthy 2009: 150–52). Similar to the case of the Hui, Mette Halskov Hansen
(1999b: 248–55) has shown that since 1982, young Dai (傣族) boys in Yunnan
have been as likely to attend Buddhist temple-based schools as they attend state-
sponsored schools. In yet another example of a thriving religious education
system operating parallel to the state-education system, I have observed several
candidate monks (undoubtedly under the age of eighteen) during several visits
to the Labrang Monastery, an important Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the
Gelugpa sect located in Xiahe, Gansu Province. Private religious schools operate
despite national laws, which forbid children from engaging in most forms of reli-
gious practice. More importantly for the current discussion, religious schools
provide outlets for these minority minzu to engender an ethnonational identity
enhanced by a religious legacy.
In contrast to the Hui, Dai, and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the Tibetan exam-
ples,9 CPC officials are increasingly vigilant towards religious (Islamic) prac-
tice among young Uyghurs. During his research in Kashgar in the mid-1990s,
Edmund Waite (2006: 258–59) discovered that government officials had closed
all private Qur’anic schools that were “illegally” offering classes to Uyghur chil-
dren. Subsequently Uyghur families have also abandoned the once common
practice of sending children to the homes of religious elders, where they would
learn suras from the Qur’an and basic Islamic prayers (Uy. namaz). Similar poli-
cies have also been enforced in Ghulja (Ch. Yining 伊寧) (Dautcher 2009: 257).
By eliminating access to an Islamic education, the CPC is effectively severing an
important medium for the “intergenerational transmission of culture” within
Uyghur communities (Bellér-Hann 2008; Millward 2007: 147).
The CPC’s contrived attempts to suffocate Islam’s influence on Uyghur society
reportedly extend beyond closing privately-run religious schools. According to
several of my informants, all forms of religious practice are strictly monitored in
Xinjiang. Polat, a university student from Ghulja who studies in Ürümqi angrily
complained that Uyghur students are required to register for Friday classes in an
apparent attempt to prevent students from attending Friday prayers at mosques
(field notes, November 27, 2006, Ürümqi). Mahmet, another university student
in Ürümqi, insisted that school regulations only permit students to attend
mosque on major Islamic holidays, and he claimed that students caught attend-
ing mosque during the semester face expulsion (field notes, August 9, 2006,
Turpan).10
228 Timothy Grose
During the month of Ramadan, restrictions on religious practice become

even more stringent. One Uyghur student protested that on Id al-Fitr (Uy.
roza héyt), the celebration commemorating the end of Ramadan, universities
in Ürümqi lock their gates in order to thwart students from attending mosque
services (field notes, November 27, 2006, Ürümqi). According to other reports,
schools prepare mandatory lunches for Uyghur students during the month of
Ramadan (Islamic Human Rights Commission 2000; Demick 2011).
The CPC is neither discrete nor apologetic about the draconian measures put
in place to curtail religious practice in Xinjiang. Li Xiaoxia (2005: 198–99), an
associate research fellow at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, confirms:
Islamic schools used to be the main venue where Muslim children learned
religious knowledge. After 1980s [sic], a few people ran private Islamic
schools without due authorization and diverted some school-aged chil-
dren from regular schooling to religious teaching, which brought harm to
those children both physically and psychologically . . . and constituted de
facto religious interference in education. The government thus banned such
activities.
In an assessment of similar commentary provided by mainland Chinese schol-

ars, Gardner Bovingdon (2010: 70) concludes, “To prevent youths from practic-
ing religion and others from teaching them about it is to allow another agent to
impose unbelief.”
In all fairness, the CPC’s paranoia directed at the religiosity of young Uyghurs
can conceivably be warranted. Acts of violence and violent protests carried out
by Uyghurs in Ghulja in 1997, in Kashgar in 2008, and in Ürümqi in 2009 have
been branded by the CPC as manifestations of “terrorism” (kongbu zhuyi 恐怖
主義), “splittism” (fenlie zhuyi 分裂主義), and (religious) “extremism” (jiduan
zhuyi 極端主義). However, in his meticulous analysis of violent incidents
in Xinjiang, James Millward (2004) has lucidly argued that at the core of this
violent resistance is Uyghur “ethnonationalism,” which has been enhanced by
growing economic inequalities between Han and Uyghur (Smith 2000), and not
Islamic “fanaticism.” Although this counter-narrative is widely accepted in aca-
demic circles, the CPC continues to conflate sporadic episodes of violence with
“radical Islam” in order to justify its uncompromising stance on Islamic practice
in the XUAR.
Without access to Qur’anic schools or the freedom to engage in public expres-

sions of Islamic religiosity, the home remains the most important source avail-
able to young Uyghurs for cultivating religious sensibility (Dautcher 2009).
Throughout the oases of the XUAR, and especially in rural areas, Islam perme-
ates many aspects of daily life for Uyghurs. From the common greeting “ässal-
amu äläykum,” to post-meal prayers (Uy. du’a or chay duasi), to celebrating major
Islamic holidays, many social norms common among Uyghur communities
have Islamic origins, and the home is where many Uyghur children learn how
to perform these rituals. Ethnographies written about Uyghur communities in
contemporary Xinjiang (Dautcher 2009; Rudelson 1997) and the author’s own
experiences during several stays with a Uyghur family in Lukchun affirm that
many Uyghur families continue to valorize and pass these practices to younger
generations.
Uyghur Students in Beijing and the Observance of Ramadan
Over two thousand miles away from the strict enforcement of religious policy
in the XUAR, Uyghur students who travel to Beijing to attend university face
fewer restrictions on their everyday expressions of their Muslim (and Uyghur)
identity. Young Uyghur women studying at MUC can commonly be seen cov-
ering their heads, and on multiple occasions I encountered Uyghur students
from several universities at Beijing’s Niujie (牛街) Mosque. Muslim students in
Beijing are also permitted to observe the Ramadan fast. Raziya, a female student
from Kashgar, explained that although MUC does not encourage students to
fast, nor do they provide pre-dawn meals (Uy. zoluq), the university’s adminis-
trators nonetheless “turn a blind eye” to those students who choose to fast (field
notes, September 15, 2006, Beijing). In this more relaxed political climate, I was
able to carry out my study.
Twenty-five Uyghur students who live and study in Beijing participated in this
study. Among these participants, twenty-four were university students, and one
participant was seeking employment at a translation company while he waited to
retake his college entrance examination. Participants included seventeen female
and eight male students, and the backgrounds of these students were diverse.
Students came to Beijing from several cities in Xinjiang with ten students from
230 Timothy Grose
Kashgar; four students from Turpan; three students from Ürümqi; as well as
students from Khotan, Korla, Kocha, Ghulja, and Aksu. Participants’ majors
and their parents’ occupations also varied. Among the participants, nineteen
attended minkaomin schools and six attended minkaohan schools.
Based on the dietary journals and interviews, sixteen students (eleven female
and five male) completed the Ramadan fast (see Table 10.1), and nine stu-
dents (six female and three male) did not observe the Ramadan fast (see Table
10.2). All but two of the students who observed the Ramadan fast (n=14) were
educated in a minkaomin school. Of those students who did not fast during
Ramadan, four attended minkaohan schools while five students were educated
in minkaomin schools.
The number of meals and the times they were eaten differed between those
individuals who fasted during Ramadan and those who did not (see Table 10.3).
Table 10.1 Uyghur students who observed the Ramadan fast

Sex Schooling Hometown Major Parents’ Occupations
Female Minkaomin Kashgar Unspecified Farmers
Female Minkaomin Kashgar Uyghur Lit. Laborer
Male Minkaomin Ürümqi Uyghur Lit. Father—railroad worker
Female Minkaomin Kashgar Uyghur Lit. Father—laborer
Female Minkaomin Ghulja Uyghur Lit. Telecommunications
Male Minkaomin Kashgar Uyghur Lit. Farmers
Female Minkaomin Unspecified Uyghur Lit. Unspecified
Female Minkaomin Kashgar Uyghur Lit. Farmers
Male Minkaomin Kashgar Uyghur Lit. Farmers
Female Minkaomin Kashgar Uyghur Lit. Farmers
Female Minkaomin Ürümqi Uyghur Lit. Retired
Female Minkaomin Korla Uyghur Lit. Unemployed
Female Minkaomin Kocha Economics Small shop owners
Female Minkaohan Turpan Uyghur Lit. Business owners
Father—doctor;
Male Minkaomin# Khotan English
mother—housewife
Father—deceased;
Male Minkaohan# Ürümqi N/A
mother—hotel worker
# Interview conducted in 2010
Table 10.2 Uyghur students who did not observe the Ramadan fast
Parents’
Sex Schooling Hometown Major
Occupations
Ethnology (minzu
Female Minkaohan Kashgar Father—police
xue) / English
Male Minkaohan^ Turpan English Farmers
Father—army
Female Minkaohan** Korla Business English
(retired)
Male Minkaohan** Turpan Logistics Farmers
Female Minkaomin Kashgar Literature Farmers
Female Minkaomin Aksu Management Father—driver
Male Minkaomin Kashgar Tourism Retired
Female Minkaomin Turpan Unspecified Father—driver
Parents both
Female Minkaomin** # Hami English
teachers
^ Student who attended a county-level boarding school program
** Student who attended the “Inland Xinjiang Classes” program (neidi xinjiang gaozhong
ban)
# Interview conducted in 2010
Individuals who observed the Ramadan fast only ate two meals per day while
those who did not fast ate three meals per day. Reflecting the practice of fasting
from sunrise to sunset, individuals who observed Ramadan ate their first meals
considerably earlier than those who did not fast. Regardless if one fasted during
Ramadan, according to the dietary journals, participants only consumed halal
(qingzhen 清真) foods as is common among most Uyghurs.
Does Minkaomin/Minkaohan Status Determine Religious Practice?
Relying on studies that have explored the changing social roles of minkaomin
and minkaohan Uyghurs, although none have specifically focused on religious
practice, we may still arrive at the prediction that minkaomin Uyghurs would be
more likely to fast than their minkaohan counterparts. It has been reported that
Uyghurs who attend minkaohan schools resemble Han Chinese in the ways they
speak, dress, and act (Dwyer 2005: 38), and minkaohan students are “generally
232 Timothy Grose
Table 10.3 Average meal times during Ramadan

Students who observed Students who did not observe
Ramadan Ramadan
Date Meal 1 Meal 2 Meal 1 Meal 2 Meal 3
September 26, 2006 3:54 a.m. 6:07 p.m. 7:21 p.m. 11:53 a.m. 6:01 p.m.
October 8, 2006 4:49 a.m. 5:49 p.m. 7:10 a.m. 11:45 a.m. 6:22 p.m.
October 21, 2006 4:50 a.m. 5:32 p.m. 6:10 a.m. 11:30 a.m. 6:26 p.m.
Beijing prayer times
9/26/06 – Fajr (Dawn) (Uy. Namaz Bamdat) 4:35 a.m.;
Maghrib (Sunset) (Uy. Namaz Sham) 6:06 p.m.
Note: Beijing prayer times for September and October 2006 were provided at http://
www.qibla.org/cgi-bin/qibla.cgi.
supposed to be culturally closer to Han Chinese” (Smith 2002: 163), while

minkaomin Uyghurs regularly judge minkaohan Uyghurs based on their devotion
to religious practice (Smith Finley 2007: 230). To be sure, the ostensible distinc-
tion drawn between minkaomin and minkaohan Uyghurs is not an invention of
academics, and others have shown that some Uyghurs affix the minkaomin/mink-
aohan labels to each other, especially in Ürümqi.11 For instance, Justin Rudelson
(1997: 128) observed that minkaohan Uyghurs are commonly referred to by
other Uyghurs as the “fourteenth nationality” (Uy. on tötinchi millät), a satiri-
cal reference to the thirteen major minzu groups who live in XUAR today, and
some minkaohan Uyghurs have described a sense of not fully belonging to either
Uyghur or Han Chinese society (Smith Finley 2007; Taynen 2006). These
accounts suggest that Uyghur students who are educated in minkaohan schools
are somehow “less Uyghur” than minkaomin Uyghurs or have even emerged as a
“hybrid” minority (Rudelson 1997: 128; Smith Finley 2007).
Minkaomin/minkaohan status does not, however, appear to determine young
Uyghurs’ decisions to observe Ramadan. This may be because the differences
between minkaomin and minkaohan schools are less pronounced than they were
a few decades ago. As stated earlier in this chapter, minkaomin simply refers to
minority minzu students who take their college entrance examination in a minor-
ity language, while minkaohan refers to students who take their examination
in Chinese. Besides the language a student tests in, the fundamental difference
separating minkaomin and minkaohan schools is the amount of classroom time
Chinese is used as the language of instruction, and even this difference is becom-
ing less significant. As Zuliyati Simayi outlines in her chapter, since 1992 and
the establishment of “experimental bilingual classes” (shiyan shuangyuban 試驗
雙語班), Putonghua is steadily replacing Uyghur as the dominant language of
classroom instruction in many of Xinjiang’s schools. Even in minkaomin primary
schools (xiaoxue 小學), Chinese is introduced to third-grade students and must
constitute 10.1 percent of the total elementary school curriculum (Xiao and
Beihetiha’er 2004: 300).12
The curriculum taught in minkaomin and minkaohan schools, regardless of the
language of instruction, has been standardized by China’s Ministry of Education.
To reiterate from above, state-sponsored schools in the PRC cannot, by law,
encourage religious practice, and course plans indicate that the curriculum
taught in minkaomin schools diverges little from minkaohan schools. Both minka-
omin and minkaohan schools require students to study state-approved histories
of the XUAR, politics (zhengzhi 政治), and moral ideology (sixiang daode 思
想道德), the latter which promotes “love for the motherland” (ai zuguo 愛祖
國), “love for science” (ai kexue 愛科學) and “love for socialism” (ai shehuizhuyi
愛社會主義) (Han 1998: 400–16). Considering the uniformity of the curricu-
lum, educational background alone is unable to explain Uyghur students’ opin-
ions towards fasting.
In light of the standardized curriculum, looking beyond the educational
backgrounds of students may prove instructive for answering one of this study’s
central questions: why do some young Uyghurs fast during Ramadan while
others do not? Examining the family backgrounds of students may help to answer
this question. Although four out of the six minkaohan students in this study did
not observe the Ramadan fast, among these four minkaohan students two were
raised in families in which at least one parent’s occupation (police officer, mili-
tary personnel, and teacher) requires membership in the CPC.13 Party members
are forbidden to engage in religious activities, and a document issued by the
XUAR Party Committee Propaganda Bureau stipulates:
234 Timothy Grose
Though Party members are also citizens, they are first of all members of
the party of the proletariat, and therefore enjoy only one freedom—the
freedom not to believe—and absolutely do not enjoy the freedom to
believe. They cannot have feet in two boats (cited in Bovingdon 2004: 35).
As Jennifer Taynen (2006: 48) has pointed out, the current generation of
minkaohan Uyghurs “abounds with children of government officials and party
members . . . and [these students] were exposed to orthodox party values, both at
home and in their formal education.”
The impact this “double exposure” to CPC values has on the religious prac-
tice of young Uyghurs was insinuated by Raziya, a female student originally from
Kashgar whose father is a police officer. During my initial interview with Raziya,
she justified her decision not to fast on the bases that fasting would be a distrac-
tion to her coursework, and the practice may be unhealthy. In a follow-up inter-
view, however, Raziya suggested that her father’s occupation as a police officer
potentially shaped her own religious practice. She reflected:
Religion affects all aspects of life. All things in people’s lives are influenced
by religion—food, clothing, how to communicate, what you say when you
are talking to men or women, how to name children . . . But some Islamic
activities are forbidden [in Xinjiang]. For example, fasting is forbidden in
schools [in Xinjiang]. Also, my father before he married prayed a lot, but
because of his job he cannot pray. This is because his work unit (danwei 單
位) [working as a police officer] forbids him to pray (field notes, September
20, 2006, Beijing).
Although Raziya never explicitly stated that her father discouraged fasting,
recent studies on Uyghur boarding school students have shown that young
Uyghurs learn Islamic rituals and practices by imitating their parents (Chen and
Postiglione 2009: 300–302). Since Raziya’s father cannot fast, it is not surprising
that Raziya herself would not cultivate this practice.
Drawing parallels to the above case, Uyghur students who are separated from
their homes and the influence of their parents while they attend boarding schools
also experience a type of double exposure to CPC values. Since its founding in
the year 2000, the “Inland Xinjiang Classes” (neidi xinjiang gaozhongban 內地新
疆高中班; Uy. ichkiri ölkilärdiki xinjiang toluq ottura sinipliri), as examined more
thoroughly in the previous chapter by Chen Yangbin, has educated over 29,000
mostly Uyghur students across designated school in China Proper (neidi 內地)
(Xinjiang Education Newspaper April 30, 2010: 1; Xinjiang Education Newspaper

July 6, 2010: 1). Students in these dislocated schools have effectively been
divorced from the influence of their parents and are only permitted to return
to their homes in Xinjiang during summer recess (Rong Jie February 2, 2005).
Parents are also discouraged from visiting their children. A 2005 Xinjiang Daily
article reports that parents of Inland Xinjiang Class students cannot enter the
boarding schools to visit their children, and parent-student visits are monitored
by school officials (Xinjiang Daily November 25, 2005).14
Compounding the time and distance spent away from their parents, Inland
Xinjiang Class students are forbidden to engage in most forms of religious prac-
tice.15 Rules outlined in articles 10 and 19 of the “Measures for administering
Xinjiang high school classes (trial)” (Neidi xinjiang gaozhongban guanli banfa
shixing 內地新疆高中班管理辦法［試行］), one of the governing docu-
ments of this program, emphasize the importance of maintaining an atheist edu-
cation (China Education and Research Network 2000), and students who do not
abide by these regulations face harsh consequences. For instance, as recently as
July 2011, two male Uyghur students of the Inland Xinjiang Class in Hangzhou
were expelled for attending prayer at a local mosque (Radio Free Asia, July 11,
2011).
Perhaps mirroring the ubiquitous conditions of these boarding schools,
Uyghur students in this study who attended either county-level boarding schools
in the XUAR (n=1) or national-level dislocated boarding schools (n=3) did not
observe the Ramadan fast. Batur, a minkaohan student who attended a county-
level boarding school in Pichan (Ch. Shanshan 鄯善), evidenced the possible
effects boarding schools have on an individual’s religious practice. During the
time of this research, Batur was a third-year student at MUC and had lived the
majority of the past six years away from his family. During Ramadan at the board-
ing school, students were given water throughout the day, and during lunch,
school monitors would carefully observe students to ensure they were eating,
making it virtually impossible for students to fast.16 When I asked Batur why
he continued to choose not to fast, he exclaimed: “I can’t stand it [fasting]. I
can’t stand being hungry! Fasting is harmful, especially to your health.” After a
short pause, Batur, lowered his head and sheepishly acknowledged: “My parents
condemn me for this [not observing Ramadan] though” (field notes, November
236 Timothy Grose
1, 2006, Beijing). Although Batur initially displayed confidence in his decision,

this confidence was quickly overcome by a sense of guilt. The personal con-
flicts created by the expectations of the state (transmitted at school) and Batur’s
parents became visible in Batur’s instant change of demeanor.
The significance of Batur’s response is apparent when it is juxtaposed with
a conversation I had with Ghäyrät, a male minkaomin student from Khotan.
Ghäyrät’s mother was a homemaker, and his father was a doctor at a local hos-
pital. Ghäyrät fasted with his family for the first week of Ramadan 2010 but
returned to Beijing before the start of the semester in order to help with the uni-
versity’s new student orientation. After he returned to Beijing, I arranged for us
to meet. We usually chatted over coffee at the nearest KFC, but on this occa-
sion, Ghäyrät politely asked if we could meet outside. Ghäyrät later explained
that he was fasting and did not want to be in the presence of food during daylight
hours. Despite the challenges fasting in Beijing may pose, Ghäyrät would not be
deterred from maintaining his practice. I asked Ghäyrät about his commitment
to fasting, and he responded, “[Fasting] is important because I am a Muslim, and
it is also very healthy” (field notes, September 7, 2010, Beijing). For Ghäyrät,
observing the Ramadan fast was a religious practice he shared with his family, a
practice which also allowed him to express his Islamic identity, and unlike Batur,
Ghäyrät considered fasting to be healthy.
Ghäyrät and the other students in this study who observed the Ramadan fast,
both minkaomin and minkaohan, shared a similar upbringing. To begin, these
young Uyghurs were raised by parents whose occupations would not require
membership to the CPC, and seven of the thirteen students who fasted were
raised in the homes of farmers (Uy. déhqan) or common laborers (Uy. ishqi).
In addition, these students commuted daily to local schools. These Uyghur stu-
dents, having only a “single exposure” to CPC values, appear to have faithfully
adhered to the requirements of Ramadan.
While some Uyghur students maintained that observing the Ramadan fast
was one of the basic requirements for all Muslims, others questioned its neces-
sity. Aynur,17 a female student from Hami who graduated from an Inland Xinjiang
Class dismissed the absoluteness of the Ramadan fast:
It’s not like it used to be in Xinjiang and women commonly work outside
the home. I also want to work and go abroad to study, so I have to study
hard. If I fast, I won’t be able to concentrate in class. But being Muslim

isn’t about how many times a day I pray or about fasting. Being Muslim is
a feeling in your heart and is about how you treat other people (field notes,
September 8, 2010).18
Even though Aynur explained to me earlier that her parents, both of whom are
teachers, did not fast, she appeared to arrive at the decision not to fast on her
own, and we can extract two important points from Aynur’s response. First,
Aynur’s decision stems from her aspirations to study abroad and obtain employ-
ment. As such, her choice not to fast can be viewed as part of a well-formulated
strategy for socioeconomic advancement. Secondly, Aynur’s affirmation of her
Muslim identity is not confined to any one Islamic tenant, nor does she view
her decision as religious laxity. Rather for Aynur, professing her faith in Islam
sufficiently fulfills the most basic requirement of Muslims. In other words, the
contents of Uyghur (and Muslim) identity cannot be essentialized.
My informants, who self-identify as both Uyghurs and Muslims, have helped
illustrate the dynamics of ethnonational identity. Their expressions of Uyghur
identity are rarely restrained by state-regulated imaginings of Uyghur-ness which
are presented in state-sponsored schools. Rather, these young Uyghurs con-
stantly negotiate their ethnonational identity with state and non-state agents,
and through a range of Islamic practices and non-practices, they find creative
ways to assert their Uyghur identity.
Conclusion
In the PRC where the CPC has classified and institutionalized its population
into minzu groups, the state occupies an especially active role in attempting to
define the terms of ethnonational identity for each minzu. The CPC implements
a number of polices, from language reform, to the permissibility of religious prac-
tice, to the implementation of a standardized curriculum in schools, all of which
carry implications for the construction of minzu identities. This chapter begins to
assess the efficacy (or futility) of the CPC’s attempts to use education to define
distinctive minzu identities that are congruent with their nation-building project.
Indeed, it is through the PRC’s state education system that the CPC attempts
to maintain separate minzu identities, yet they also attempt to ensure that these
238 Timothy Grose
identities remain in harmony with a shared national identity that values Han
Chinese cultural capital (Postiglione 2009b: 505).
Whereas past research on education in the XUAR has contended that state-
sponsored education can have an eroding effect on Uyghur culture and may
influence Uyghur students’ perceptions of their ethnonational identity, this
chapter offers a humble interjection. Using the Ramadan fast to gauge per-
sonal expressions of Uyghur and Muslim identity, my research suggests that the
minkaomin/minkaohan divide, at least in Beijing, cannot account for the varying
religious convictions found among young Uyghurs. Indeed, CPC policies aimed
at curbing the practice of Islam in the XUAR, family ties to the CPC, and board-
ing school programs are structures that may challenge the Islamic norms pre-
dominating many Uyghur communities. Yet, despite these social structures, it
appears that young Uyghurs (as Muslim minorities who live in a modernizing,
socialist country) decide for themselves how to navigate, define, and assert their
multilayered identities.
By creating fifty-six distinct minzu groups, the CPC finds itself trapped in a
paradox. On the one hand, the CPC attempts to promote the diversity of its mul-
tiethnic country, while on the other hand, they attempt to unite the Han majority
with the fifty-five, often culturally and linguistically different, ethnic minorities.
In Fei Xiaotong’s (1989) formula of “pluralistic unity” (duoyuan yiti 多元一
體), he spoke of the Zhonghua minzu “family” gradually forming over the span
of 5,000 years. How pluralistic the Zhonghua minzu can actually be, however, has
not been determined. Can Uyghurs simultaneously be “Chinese” and determine,
for themselves, the extent that Islam defines Uyghur identity? The CPC’s current
policy in Xinjiang indicates that the answer to this question is “not if we have it
our way.” Fei Xiaotong (2010: 79) himself recognized that political discrimina-
tion and oppression will “increase resistance, enhance ethnic consciousness, and
[ultimately] widen the gap between [China’s] peoples.” Whether or not the CPC
will acknowledge Fei’s timely observation remains to be seen.
11
The Trilingual Trap
“Imagined” Empowerment among Ethnic Mongols in China
Zhao Zhenzhou
You can go around the grassland if you master the Mongolian language;
You can go around China if you master Chinese;
You can go around the world if you master English.
—Mongolian saying
The acquisition of majority or global languages may constitute an investment

in human capital and further empower members of culturally marginalized
groups. Unsurprisingly, China has witnessed growing demand for trilingual pro-
ficiency among ethnic groups over the past decade, although the state does not
coerce minority students to learn an international language (usually English) as
they do the Han majority (Adamson and Feng 2009; Jie’ensi 2004; Tsung this
volume). Groups including Tibetans, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Koreans, and Mongols
have made attempts to implement trilingual courses in primary and secondary
schools, generally called an “experimental trilingual class” (Che 2006; Hu 2007;
Ma and Li 2008; Shi and Xing 2011; Tsung this volume; Yuan et al. 2009). Local
governments at the provincial or county levels play an active role in launching
the projects. Can this sort of locally based initiative for multilingual competency
foster empowerment for non-Han minorities in China?
This study specifically focuses on one of the country’s largest minor-
ity groups, the Mongols (Mengguzu 蒙古族), whose population in China is
about 5.8 million (based on the 2000 census). Most live in the Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region (IMAR), which is one of the five provincial-level autono-
mous regions established for non-Han ethnic groups by the Communist Party
of China between the 1940s and 1960s. Mongols played a particularly impor-
tant role in China’s history, and established one of only two dynasties that united
240 Zhao Zhenzhou
all China under non-Han rule. However, similar to nearly all non-Han groups
in China, the Mongol people have had to defend themselves against a process
of Sinicization, which began in the seventeenth century. Since then, a growing
number of Han settlers have migrated to Inner Mongolia and brought to a halt
much of the Mongols’ traditional herding economy (Sneath 2000). Despite the
decline of Mongol power, the Mongolian language has remained in use for more
than 800 years. Mongols also maintain their distinct ethnicity to some degree
in their literature, music, medicine and other aspects of their cultural heritage.
Based on the life experiences of trilingual minority students at two universities,
this chapter addresses how China’s trilingual education, as a self-determination
initiative taken by a local ethnic community, informs empowerment of non-Han
ethnic groups.
As part of the nation-state building project, the Chinese form of multicul-
turalism lies in the shadow of a centralized bureaucracy and Marxist-Stalinist
legacy. Ethnic relationships are construed in terms of “group ranking,” that is to
say, the subjugation of all ethnic identities to an overarching and honorable iden-
tity of the Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu 中華民族). This is embodied in the
duoyuan yiti geju (多元一體格局), “plurality within unity,” formula proposed
by Fei Xiaotong (1989). But this vision encounters enormous challenges in an
era of globalization, mainly for two reasons. First, globalization reshapes the
central-peripheral relations between the Han and non-Han groups, for the lan-
guage and culture of the Han majority is positioned peripherally in the interna-
tional landscape. Second, the social changes caused by globalization, for example
in transportation, technology and cultural consumption, tend to dissolve the
boundaries of nation-states. Market forces have interfered with government reg-
ulation in China’s post-Mao era, which features a mixture of neoliberal market
mechanisms and government dominance. Such a complicated circumstance calls
for a reexamination of the “plurality within unity” formula, which largely devel-
oped in the traditional nation-state paradigm, and may now fail to accommodate
the ongoing social transformations in China. In this sense, a study on trilingual-
ism in non-Han groups helps to offer a new angle to reinterpret China’s conflict
and conciliation between diversity and unity in a globalized context.
The Trilingual Trap 241
Research Settings: Language Instruction for Ethnic Minorities in

China
China is a multiethnic and multilingual country. Apart from a huge variety of

Han Chinese dialects, there are at least sixty officially recognized languages
among minority groups. More precisely, there are 80 to 120 spoken languages
and 47 writing systems (Stites 1999). Except for the Hui (回族), Manchu (滿
族), and several other minority groups that speak the Han Chinese language,
ethnic minorities in China have distinct languages, and some even have more
than one.
Generally speaking, the state offers two types of educational streams designed
to meet ethnic students’ needs at the primary and secondary school levels.
The Type I option is for an ethnic minority student to attend the regular study
program (minkaohan 民考漢) together with their Han peers. Students attend
the same classes in which Chinese is used as the medium of instruction and are
given the same examinations. An international language (usually English, but
sometimes Japanese, Russian, or other languages) is a compulsory course for
all. Minority students are accorded bonus points on the college entrance exami-
nation in order to encourage their enrollment in Type I schools. The Type II
option is for the ethnic minority student to enroll in a specially designed ethnic
study program (minkaomin 民考民), which includes a bilingual (the minority
and Chinese languages) curricula and offers (on some occasions) the optional
subject of an international language (also usually English) based on specific con-
texts. It is worth noting that textbooks and examinations for the instruction of
ethnic languages are mostly translated directly from the Chinese language. This
type of bilingual educational program is available to students from kindergarten
through higher education. But the tracking of students through one option or
the other usually begins in primary school, even kindergarten, and it is difficult
to move between the two streams.
In reality, Chinese and ethnic languages are accorded different status
(Adamson and Feng 2009). In reference to the case of Tibetans in Qinghai,
Upton (1999: 311) notes: “The language of officialdom remains Chinese and,
with the exception of formal translation work, there is little opportunity for
the use of Tibetan in the public sphere.” As a consequence, minority students
242 Zhao Zhenzhou
increasingly prefer Type I schools. As Hansen (1999b) points out, based on her
study of minority groups in southwest China, minority students are fully aware
of the fact that minority language, culture, and history play a minor role in their
success in the educational system.
Since the 1980s, apart from pressure from the dominant Chinese language,
ethnic minority languages have increasingly faced an assault from English.
Acquisition of an international language has been strongly embraced by the
national government for the purpose of modernization and economic devel-
opment. Although the term “trilingual education” (ethnic language, Chinese,
and English) is neither a part of official state policy nor rhetoric, it increasingly
receives widespread attention among ethnic groups. A primary reason is that
parents, ethnic elites, and local government officials worry that denial of interna-
tional languages may exacerbate educational inequalities between the majority
and minority groups (Beckett and MacPherson 2005). Clearly, trilingual educa-
tion for ethnic minorities is closely relevant to autonomous social movements
occurring through a bottom-up approach for the purpose of empowerment
(Wang 2005).
This innovative program also receives academic criticism. Some say minority
students have more burdens than the Han, others claim that their achievements
in Chinese and English come at the expense of their mother tongue, and it has
been said that there are shortages of qualified teachers and teaching materials
(cf. Jie’ensi 2004; Yuan et al. 2009). The Mongols discussed in this chapter have
made an initial attempt at promoting trilingual proficiency since the 1990s. The
autonomous government of Inner Mongolia initiated a program of building
English proficiency as a part of the Type II schooling system starting from junior
secondary education in 2001. Compared to their counterparts, students in the
experimental trilingual class had to cram six years of English into their three-year
senior middle school education, meaning they had less time to devote to other
subjects.
The pursuit of multilingual competency is mainly for meeting the entrance
requirement to higher education institutions, especially the prestigious ones. But
little is still known about the functions of the three languages on university cam-
puses and how trilingualism relates to minority student participation (including
academic performance and social interactions) in campus life and their further
empowerment.
Conceptual Framework: Language, Capital and Empowerment
Language is not simply a medium of communication but also reflects power

relations (Glastra and Schedler 2004). Within nation-states, the policy of lin-
guistic unification establishes and permeates relations of domination while
shaping a linguistic market wherein languages display unequal distributions of
capital (Bourdieu 1991). As He Baogang argues in his chapter in this volume,
the process of unification leads to structural linguistic inequality and furthers a
form of linguistic imperialism. For members of minority groups, knowledge of a
majority language leads to an accumulation of human capital or, in other words,
a better socioeconomic status in mainstream society (Pendakur and Pendakur
2002). This means empowerment at the individual level. Kabeer (1999: 435)
defines empowerment “as a process by which those who have been denied the
ability to make strategic life choices acquire such ability.” This individual-focused
construct of empowerment encompasses multiple interrelated dimensions—
material, access to resources, agency, and achievement (Kabeer 1999).
However, individual empowerment alone is not enough to change the fate
of individuals from disadvantaged and marginalized groups. This is because, as
Sprague and Hayes (2000) argue, existing social structural relationships (e.g.
highly bureaucratic institutions and school systems) facilitate empowerment in
the community of the privileged and ignore society’s most vulnerable members.
With the economic reforms introduced by Communist China’s authoritarian
rule over the past three decades, the preservation of minority languages is influ-
enced by multiple factors including market forces (at international, regional, and
national levels), government policies, and an increasing awareness of cultural
autonomy from the grassroots. These factors, complicatedly interwoven with
each other, play a critical role in the language choice of individual members and
ethnic communities in their struggle for greater empowerment.
To change domination or oppression, power relationship should be conceived
at both individual and collective levels, i.e. “individual and collective empower-
ment and the complex interconnections between these different modalities of
power” (Allen 2008: 163). Young (1997: 89) first distinguished two modes
of empowerment: “For some therapists and service providers, empowerment
means the development of individual autonomy, self-control and confidence; for
244 Zhao Zhenzhou
others, empowerment refers to the development of a sense of collective influ-

ence over the social conditions of one’s life.” The second mode of empowerment,
collective empowerment is:
A process in which individual, relatively powerless persons engage in dia-
logue with each other and thereby come to understand the social sources of
their powerlessness and see the possibility of acting collectively to change
their social environment. In the process, each participant is personally
empowered, undergoes some personal transformation, but in the context
of a reciprocal aiding of others in doing so, in order that together they might
be empowered to engage in effective collective action (Young 1997: 91).
Though not stated explicitly, Young suggests that collective empowerment is a

condition of individual empowerment. Put together, language is able to inform
empowerment and shift the underlying power relations in the social fabric, since
it can transform itself into capital. Let us return now to the Chinese context.
The government in China has been engaged in a struggle between fostering
linguistic unification and nationhood and preserving ethnic minority auton-
omy and minority languages in particular. This is referred to as “China’s ethnic
dilemma” (Zhao 2010b). Namely, “Chinese authorities establish, essentialize,
and staticize cultural differences between groups, and at the same time also
facilitate individuals to deny differences for social solidarity and national unity”
(Zhao 2010b: 8). While striking an internal balance between the Han majority
and non-Han minorities, China also involves herself in another struggle between
maintaining the distinctiveness of the nation and pursuing international ventur-
ing to modernize and enhance global influence. Within China’s centralized regu-
latory system in education, the Chinese and English literacies are enforced to
gauge the degree of being well educated. Thus, a market is formed wherein other
languages and cultures are accorded lower capital and reluctantly consumed by
parents and students. Tsung reveals in her chapter that after the 1980s Han stu-
dents were no longer encouraged to study ethnic minority languages and have
since engaged in learning Chinese and English only, even in ethnic minority con-
centrated areas such as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. As a conse-
quence, the language, cultural practices, and traditional religions of minorities,
including the Mongolian people, are in serious decline. Student enrollment in
Mongolian schools has plummeted dramatically since the 1980s. An obvious
reason for this is that ethnic schools cannot ensure well-paid employment for
their graduates in the current social system (Wulan 1997). These students have
limited choices when applying to a university, in that most Chinese universities
offer only Chinese language study programs and English is required for gradua-
tion. Even within Inner Mongolia, the Han are the majority, and consequently
there are few worksites or colleges geared toward Mongolian monolinguals
(Khan 1995). Ma Rong (2007a) indicates that Mongols have a stronger motiva-
tion to learn Chinese than Han have to learn Mongolian in pastoral areas of Inner
Mongolia, let alone urban areas. Outside the autonomous region, the Chinese
language is a necessity for making a living in political and economic centers. In
such a milieu, it is argued that ethnic minority languages are put at the bottom
of a hierarchical language system (Bilik 1998). Therefore, trilingual education,
as a means of preserving ethnic languages for the next generation and enhancing
ethnic members’ competitiveness, attracts much attention and endeavors among
non-Han ethnic groups.
The data presented in this paper came from narrative interviews with twelve
Mongol students who graduated from the experimental trilingual class in Inner
Mongolia and then went on to attend two universities (A and B) outside the
autonomous region. University A is primarily geared to students coming out of
a regular study program (Type I) at their primary and secondary level and the
latter for those from an ethnic studies program (Type II). The fieldwork was con-
ducted in 2004. The trilingual Mongols constituted only a very small percentage
of students at these two universities. Since there were no official statistics of their
exact numbers, according to my informants, there were approximately sixty-
seven Mongol students of this type at University A and less than ten at University
B in the year 2004. I interviewed these informants more than once in different
settings, both on and off campus. Observations were also made to understand
the learning and living environments at each university.
A university under the Ministry of Education, University A is located in
Beijing, a modern cosmopolitan city. Han students comprised the majority of
total undergraduates, whereas minority minzu students comprised barely 10
percent. University B, mainly financed and managed by the State Ethnic Affairs
Commission, is a special university for training minority members in Central
246 Zhao Zhenzhou
China. Although ethnic minority students comprised barely a majority (54

percent), most were highly Sinicized and had lost their own cultural practices.
Although this study focuses mainly on ethnic Mongols, the research findings
may have implications for other non-Han groups. This is mainly because China is
a centralized state, so public policies applicable to Mongols do not differ signifi-
cantly from those for other ethnic minority groups.
Findings
The findings are categorized based on three language domains: the ethnic lan-
guage (Mongolian), Chinese, and English. I will discuss how these three lan-
guage competencies influence the participation of minority students in and out
of the classroom.
Mongolian
Uses of the Mongolian language are mainly manifested in class note-taking

(although the medium of instruction was Chinese at these two universities),
subscribing to Mongolian-language journals from Inner Mongolia, bringing
Mongolian books to the university from home, or reading Mongolian literature
from Minzu University of China. Generally speaking, Mongol students had few
opportunities to use their mother tongue in the public domain. Students from
other minority groups face a similar situation. Because of less usage, Mongol
students reported that their native language competency worsened, particularly
their writing ability.
Compared with counterparts who had been fully assimilated into Han society
in the regular study program, Mongol students who attended the trilingual
ethnic program to some degree formed a clique and spoke Mongolian in their
private domain. After class, these students often had meals together and chatted
in their mother tongue. During holidays, they went to parks or organized social
activities. This frequent use of the minority language led to some dissatisfaction
toward Mongols by the Han students. Minority students explained that using the
Mongolian language was a habit that was hard to change. But their explanation
did not overcome misunderstandings.
Speaking the Mongolian language seemed to be an essential criterion for

gaining access to the group. Mongols who could not speak their ethnic language
were regarded as “fakes” and excluded from the community. Given the fact that a
great number of minority members attending the regular study program had lost
their mother tongue, mastery of ethnic language created a boundary dividing
minority students from different educational programs. Yolk, a female Chinese-
speaking Mongol specializing in physics at University A, described an incident
that occurred between her and Mongol peers who studied in the ethnic study
program that sheds light on their interactions. She was educated in the regular
study program before admission, and told me:
Once while playing volleyball, I met several male students from the
Department of English. After learning that I came from Inner Mongolia,
they asked whether I was a Mongol. I answered, “Yes.” Then they quickly
continued to ask whether I could speak the Mongolian language. I shook
my head. They looked very disappointed. I could catch their meaning, “You
are a Mongol, but cannot speak the Mongolian language.” Because I could
not speak the Mongolian language, we did not talk a lot.
Some Mongol students also looked for group members from the Republic of
Mongolia. The shared language helped minority Mongol students establish rela-
tionships with foreign students from this independent nation of Mongols, adja-
cent to Inner Mongolia, that split from China in the 1920s. Also, the students
loved rock music from Mongolia.
Apart from the ethnic language’s function as a symbol for ethnic identifica-
tion, trilingual Mongol students employed their mother tongue as symbolic
capital in their dedication to cultural representation to attain personal and insti-
tutional recognition. At the annual welcome party for freshman students held
by the department at University A, Mongol students collectively performed
ethnic songs and dances. Although they had lost most of their cultural traditions,
including knowledge of their history, religion, and customs, compared with their
peers who had lost their mother tongue (i.e., those in the regular study program),
these Mongolian students maintain a stronger Mongol identity and make an
effort to struggle for cultural recognition.
248 Zhao Zhenzhou
Chinese
After enrollment in university, trilingual participants, namely, those educated

under Type II environments, reported that they encountered relatively few
Chinese language barriers, except when faced with the course “Chinese Language
and Literature.” It was hard for them to learn to read ancient Chinese literature
because they had not been exposed to it before. In addition, these students had to
spend more time adapting to learning in the Chinese language. More specifically,
they needed to match past knowledge learned in Mongolian with new knowl-
edge in Chinese and become accustomed to reciting it in the Chinese language.
Because of their relative strength in academics, trilingual Mongols did not
report having as many feelings of inferiority, confusion, or frustration as their
bilingual counterparts, although they also complained that their ethnic language
was of no use in larger society. Yet the Mongolian language, unlike the logo-
graphic Mandarin script, is a phonographic script based on Sanskrit. Mastery of
the mother tongue may also facilitate minority students learning an international
language from the same family, such as Japanese.
Most trilingual participants enjoyed positive inclusion in social activities on
campus because of their excellent Chinese proficiency. They attended all sorts of
student organizations and associations (such as the Student Union and Student
Art Troupe) and became student cadres at the university, department, and class
levels. Some even assumed important positions, including secretary of a class
branch of the Chinese Communist Party, vice chairperson or division head of
the Student Union, and head of a student association. Occasionally, some stu-
dents were awarded scholarships and department honors.
Compared with Tibetans and minorities from the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region, trilingual Mongol students did well in terms of inter
actions with others. In actuality, members of other ethnic minority groups are
often perceived as truants, smokers, and those who communicate only among
themselves. It appeared that ethnic Mongols got along well with students from
all groups and tried their best to adapt well to university life. Their strategy was
to get along well with others while trying to preserve their own cultural practices.
In general, the findings show that the trilingual education program (minority
languages, Chinese, and English) helps to foster minority student participation
at the university. Owing to the language advantage, these minority students tend
to be better able to compete with their Han peers and do well at university. But
the “triumph” of trilingual education relies on the fact that it expands opportuni-
ties for competition with Han peers and therefore improves student confidence
in some ways.
English
Compared with the shrinking usage of ethnic languages on campus and in larger
society, English is widely promoted by the university and considered an impor-
tant standard for ranking students. For example, like many political indoctrina-
tion courses (e.g. Mao Zedong Thought), English is set as a compulsory subject
for nearly all students at Chinese universities. In most cases, students are com-
pelled to pass English qualification tests administered by the central educa-
tion authorities before graduation and as a prerequisite to postgraduate study.
In order to improve students’ English proficiency, the university created many
English-speaking circumstances, despite the fact that there were actually very
few native speakers on campus.
Campus media (i.e., radio, TV, and student publications) deliver programs
in English or about learning in English. There were several newspaper boards
to display the latest newspapers on campus. One of them is China Daily, an
English-language newspaper. Some notices and posters were only in English.
More often than not, there were activities and English competitions designed to
improve students’ language proficiency. This was in contrast to the fact that no
campus programs were broadcast in ethnic languages. Moreover, a great number
of university publications (for example, the library introduction) are bilingual
(Chinese and English) because Chinese universities aspire to establish an inter-
national image.
As mentioned above, trilingualism helps to tangibly improve minority stu-
dents’ participation on campus. But it also has a downside. Because of the time
spent working on their English, trilingual minority students encounter intan-
gible academic obstacles at university. These Mongol students appeared to be
less well read than other students, because an emphasis was put on the learning
of English at the expense of other subjects during the secondary stage of their
250 Zhao Zhenzhou
education. As Liankhua, a female Mongol student in the department of econom-

ics at University B, said:
In our senior middle school, English was of great importance. Therefore,
our English is good. But we did not study physics, chemistry, and biology
because we were liberal arts majors. We did not study them even in the first
year of high school. We only studied politics, geography, history, mathemat-
ics, Mongolian language, Chinese, and English. Now, when my roommates
mention electric circuits and biological or physiological phenomenon they
studied in secondary school, they all know it, but I do not know it at all. This
was a weakness of the experimental trilingual class. Aiming to compete with
Han students in examinations, the experimental class did not emphasize
our all-around development.
The experience of a female Year-3 student at University A is also illustra-

tive. She graduated from a trilingual experimental class in Inner Mongolia and
majored in English, and told me:
Among the Mongol students, only those from the experimental class are
capable of competing with Han students. However, our weakness is that
we have learned little in social sciences and humanities. Although compet-
ing with Han students, we do not have any advantages. In chatting with the
Han, I feel very embarrassed when they mention something that I do not
know. That is really a very big regret.
Since the 1980s, competition has been highly intense in the education system
because students are granted autonomy to find jobs on their own in the labor
market. This makes for a sharp contrast with the unified job assignment system
under the planned economy in the Mao era. Despite the fact that Russian (rather
than English) was taught in schools at that time, international languages played
a less crucial role in achieving successful competition in educational tracks and
high-paying jobs.
A systematic examination of the campus context shows that students, from
both majority and minority groups, in fact have few real chances to use English
in classroom practices and their daily lives. English is a compulsory course for all
undergraduate and postgraduate university students, but it is still seldom used in
subject learning. However, students reported they had spent much time studying
English. Some proudly told me they had obtained English certificates such as the
College English Test Band 4 and 6 or a Business English Certificate. Competition
for these certificates is stiff and poses similar challenges for Han students.
Discussion
Education interplays intimately with nation-state building and economic devel-

opment, as Bilik notes in his chapter in this volume. Unlike former colonial
regions such as India, Singapore, and Hong Kong, a rapid expansion of English in
China is largely driven by the Chinese Central Government in order to reshape
the state’s political and economic position in the world. During the 1980s,
English replaced Russian as the primary foreign language taught in China’s
highly centralized schooling system. Since 2001, the State Ministry of Education
has required all students to start learning English in the third grade. English has
become a mandatory subject for almost all Chinese students in the entrance
examinations of senior high schools (China implemented nine-year compulsory
education including six-year primary and three-year junior secondary), universi-
ties and colleges, as well as postgraduate study. In most Chinese higher education
institutions, to receive an English qualification certificate administrated by the
central education authorities is a necessity for graduation and degree conferral.
Yet ethnic minority students in the Type II schooling system are excluded
from this scheme. Although the policy may be well intentioned (given the fact
that minority students are also required to learn Chinese at the same time), it
fails to promise the same future for minority members as mainstream programs
and exacerbates the inequality between majority and minority (Zhao 2010a).
The Chinese form of multicultural education has no intension to realize one of
the essential commitments of multicultural education as argued by James Banks
(2004), empowering school culture and social structure. Unsurprisingly, minor-
ity individuals often make “rational” choices to select Type I schools, a path in
which they sacrifice the chance of learning their mother tongues and cultures and
instead become Chinese-English bilingual. As Bulag (2003: 760) has observed,
“minorities are often forced to turn against their collective interests and pursue
an individual survival strategy.” The linguistic unification of Chinese and English
by the state produces domination, which privileges a small portion of the Han
(actually only those speaking the standard Putonghua) and those living in large
cities or economically developed regions (because of access to more resources
and more exposure to English). Those minorities who do not speak Chinese are
placed in the most disadvantaged position, because most of them live in rural or
252 Zhao Zhenzhou
less developed regions. In China’s linguistic market, the capital of non-Han lan-
guages is devastatingly devalued.
As argued by Gao, He, and Bilik in their chapters in this volume, the increas-
ing popularity of Chinese (Putonghua) over the last three decades is greatly
influenced by China’s embrace of neoliberal market reforms. Two factors play
an important role: one is the free flow of the labor despite the constraints of
the household registration system (hukou 戶口), and the other is migration
(according to the 2010 census, one out of every seven people in China migrates
to cities or economically developed regions to seek a job). This creates a tremen-
dous demand for Chinese proficiency. As a result, minority languages tend to be
squeezed out and lose their appeal in such a market-driven context.
The dominance of English has limited relevance with the real demands in the
market, however. Despite the fact that the central government requires nearly
all students to learn English and uses it as a criterion for enrollment in most
higher education institutions, English is not the lingua franca in either Chinese
society or higher education institutions. According to the latest census, foreign
inhabitants in China constitute nearly 600,000, only around 0.04 percent of the
national population,1 and people from English-speaking countries (including
the United States, Canada and Australia) occupy less than 18 percent of China’s
foreign population. Statistics from across China in 2006 show there were 9,464
international staff members in higher education institutions and 17,407 overseas
students (75.7 percent from Asian countries).2 On campuses of higher educa-
tion institutions, there are few native English-speaking staff members and stu-
dents. As there are approximately 4,000 higher education institutions (including
private schools) nationwide, it can be estimated that there are a small number of
English speakers on campuses. Furthermore, college students have little expo-
sure to newspapers, TV, and radio from English-speaking countries because
not all international media are permitted in China because of political reasons.
Like all Chinese, students can access several English-language newspapers pub-
lished by the Chinese government and Central China TV Channel 9 (the only
official English TV channel). Most English contexts on campus are arbitrarily
constructed without “real” audiences. Except those in several businesses such as
international trade and finance, tourism, foreign enterprises (only a portion) and
research institutes, an overwhelming majority of Chinese have limited chance
to use English in their work and lives despite spending years learning English at
school. The exposure and use of English in reality lags far behind the Chinese
government’s international passion.
Despite the rare uses in real life outside and inside schools, English has been
adopted as a de facto ranking criterion for students and professional personnel
in China. Schools, education and research institutions, and professional bodies
are largely operated by the government and enjoy little autonomy. These govern-
ment-regulated sectors remain isolated from China’s marketization project. Zhao
and Campbell (1995) also note that the primary function of English in China is
not for international communication but for social and economic mobility. In
other words, English is used as a tool by a small handful of Chinese elite to domi-
nate the vast majority of the population.
Let us go to the central question of this chapter, does trilingual education for
ethnic minorities bring about substantial empowerment for them? Although
the meaning of empowerment still remains contested in the international litera-
ture, a partial consensus has been reached: empowerment is a dynamic process
and leads to an outcome, that is, greater welfare (Kabeer 1999; Mahmud 2003;
Sprague and Hayes 2000). In other words, the question is whether trilingual
education is able to generate greater welfare for ethnic individuals. Many more
empirical studies are required to fully answer this question. Based on the par-
ticipants’ own experiences and understandings, the present study suggests that
trilingual Mongol students face fewer obstacles than those from the Mongolian-
Chinese bilingual stream, but the welfare gained comes at a price. They still
encounter many challenges in their university life, which impedes them from
developing confidence and realizing self-development.
Trilingual education, as a transformation of the original bilingual education
programs (Chinese and ethnic languages as medium of instructions), is a social
movement by some ethnic elites and local government officials for full participa-
tion in the public domain. Because ethnic minority languages possess the least
linguistic capital (compared with national and international languages), acqui-
sition of an international language seems to be able to balance their accumula-
tion of human capital in interethnic competition and endow minority students
with power in social relations. The driving force is non-Han ethnic minorities’
desire to engage in mainstream society and obtain equal opportunities for global
254 Zhao Zhenzhou
participation. Yet trilingual education can hardly change the reality that ethnic
languages are much devalued compared with Chinese and English in China’s
closed, monopolized linguistic market. I described the market as “closed” in
that almost all public schools nationwide (an overwhelmingly dominant form of
school provision in China) are mandated to teach these two languages and stu-
dents have few choices of other ones. Just as during the Mao era, when nearly eve-
rybody was required to learn Russian, English learning serves certain purposes
for the state. Of course, this has occurred against the backdrop of globalization
wherein English attains its dominance internationally. Within China, neverthe-
less, English is mainly a product manipulated by the central government, who
remains in absolute control of key sections of society, such as education, public
services, and the most profitable enterprises (such as oil, gas and telecommuni-
cation). Trilingual education is pursued largely because ethnic minority commu-
nities and individuals are keen to gain access to the higher education resources
monopolized by the state.
This chapter argues that trilingual proficiency alone offers minority members
an “imagined empowerment,” which renders ethnic languages a deficiency
and encourages ethnic individuals to make extra efforts to attain success and
empower themselves to fully participate in the dominant society. It projects
an illusion that the current social system is fair and everybody enjoys an equal
chance only if she or he acquires specific abilities required by the society. Yet,
even for those members who become “successful” during this process (it remains
unclear how many of them are able to attain real success), they still need to strug-
gle against other forms of disadvantage compared with the majority. The fun-
damental reason lies in the treatment of their native languages and cultures as
deficiencies rather than something to be valued. In the case of trilingual Mongols,
although some members gain the opportunity to enter universities outside Inner
Mongolia, they fail to learn other subjects at even a basic educational level, which
can impede their confidence and prevent them from fully participating in the
education process. Moreover, focusing on differences in individual ability under-
mines the collective identity of the ethnic minority groups. This type of empow-
erment separates individual empowerment from collective empowerment of
the entire ethnic groups, and cannot shift the unequal power relationship (see
Young 1997). It is only a surface remedy and disadvantages ethnic languages and
cultures.
It is argued that substantive ways of promoting empowerment among minor-

ity students are through reforming the schooling system and establishing a
school culture that better accommodates different cultures (Cummins 1995).
Suggested measures include incorporation of student culture and language,
inclusion of minority communities in the education of their children, pedagogy,
and assessment. Examining trilingual education policies in the Chinese context,
Adamson and Feng (2009) contend that only restructuring curricula, trans-
forming campus culture, and changing examinations and university entrance
requirements can ultimately help minority members generate a substantial sense
of confidence and facilitate their full participation in school settings. However,
such a “humanitarian” approach is able to impose little influence on the market
and ethnic minority parents and students who increasingly select an educational
stream that they believe best serves their economic interests. An effective initia-
tive should not be limited in a political sense but must also take an economic per-
spective. As discussed above, empowerment of culturally marginalized groups
relates closely to the cause of language as a capital and the already-formed lin-
guistic market.
The devaluation of ethnic languages is an essential factor in dampening the
enthusiasm for mother tongue preservation, and disincentivizes Han students
from learning ethnic languages in ethnically-concentrated areas. Only a reshuffle
of the market structure now distorted by the government monopoly can finally
lead to a change of the disadvantaged status of ethnic languages and a substantial
empowerment of culturally marginalized groups. Once the centralized language
policy is relaxed and English is not used as a one-size-fits-all criterion by the state
in educational institutes nationwide, non-Han ethnic members and their com-
munities may be provided with more options in international language learning
by schools and local authorities.
Given the linguistic strength of minority groups, diversification of interna-
tional language learning among ethnic groups can empower non-Han members
and help boost China’s global competence at the same time. For example,
Mongolian, Tibetan, and Korean students have an advantage in learning Japanese
compared with their Han peers because of the grammatical similarities among
these languages. Uyghur, Kazakh, and Uzbek students also have an edge in learn-
ing Turkish, because their mother tongues fall into the same language family as
256 Zhao Zhenzhou
the latter. Additionally, the border-crossing groups have more resources and lin-
guistic advantage in access to a foreign language than the Han. For example, Dai
students may appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the language and
culture of Thailand, and this may create future job opportunities. There are other
similar groups such as the Jing (the Vietnamese language) and the Korean (the
Korean language in South Korea). Based on the asset of their mother tongues,
these non-Han ethnic students may easily grasp these languages. In turn, this
shows the potential values of ethnic languages to enhance the awareness of their
educational customers about the importance of cherishing their cultural heritage.
This chapter does not argue here that non-Han ethnic groups should not
learn English. My main argument is that the existing market dominated by state
power distorts the value of ethnic languages through an educational centraliza-
tion system and wastes China’s rich and diverse human resources. If English is
provided as an optional subject instead of being part of nearly all official evalua-
tions and selections, schools and students can avoid spending a large amount of
time on exam preparation. With the pedagogy changed, students may be given
more opportunities to improve their ability to use language in real-life situations
and better enjoy the learning of a second, third, and even fourth language.
Concluding Remarks
This study is not alone in suggesting that minority students benefit from tri-
lingualism, but in the process are put at a disadvantage (cf. Adamson and Feng
2009; Jie’ensi 2004). For ethnic minority students, acquisition of their mother
tongues should not be a hindrance to reaching out to a broader world in China
and globally. Instead, a solid mastery of their first language can evolve into an
advantage in learning other foreign languages and create more opportunities for
them. The Chinese government should not turn a blind eye to the hugely rich
language resources that exist inside China and expend such enormous effort in
making itself into an English-speaking country. In the globalized world today,
China’s rapid economic expansion urgently needs multilingual and multicultural
human resources. The use of English for national unification ignores the poten-
tial value of non-Han ethnic languages as capital on the global market. This is a
waste of human resources for both ethnic individuals and the whole nation.
This chapter argues that in a diversified, decentralized system for international

language learning, the values of native languages and cultures can be more likely
reassessed by ethnic parents and students. This may lead to enhanced preserva-
tion and even development of these diverse human heritages, and also a genuine
empowerment for both individuals and groups.
The accommodation of mother tongues, national, and international lan-
guages for non-Han ethnic groups is a complicated issue in China. In today’s
globalized world, “diversity” (多元) should be construed with reference to all
human beings who live together on this planet and whose lives are closely inter-
connected with each other, rather than those confined to a single nation-state.
The building of “national integration” (一體) should occur in a just and liberal
social context in which everyone enjoys equal opportunity and the protection
of their rights as citizens, and also as human beings. The trap of trilingualism is
that it leads to “imagined” empowerment that excludes the potential to pursue
alternative social orders and merely encourages seeking individual solutions in
the current system. As the world’s most populous country and the second largest
economy, reforming China should re-examine its education agenda, reshape the
landscape of its school system strategically in such a changing, globalized world,
and commit herself to building an open and fair society.
12
Identity and Multilingualism
Negotiating Multiculturalism among Ethnic Korean
Teachers in China
Gao Fang
Mindful of Fei Xiaotong’s (1991) “plurality within the organic unity of the
Chinese nation” (Zhonghua minzu duoyuan yiti geju 中華民族多元一體格局)
paradigm, which attempts to balance ethnic diversity and national unity in China
within an assumed pluralistic framework, this chapter reconstructs the discursive
position of Korean-Chinese teachers within complex and conflicting discourses,
and sheds new light on the importance of maintaining ethnic languages for the
building of genuine multicultural education in China. China’s diverse ethnic
minorities (shaoshu minzu 少數民族), with many different languages and cul-
tures, have much experience with the push and pull of homogenizing forces and
indigenous cultures, representing a context-specific paradox of multicultural-
ism. The number and diversity of ethnic languages articulate a complex array
of problems in the provision of language education for ethnolinguistic minor-
ity children (Stites 1999). To understand language teaching and learning is to
understand language teachers’ “professional, cultural, political, and individual
identities” (Varghese et al. 2005: 22). The language classroom is increasingly
seen as a complicated place where many aspects of teacher identity—including
matters of race, ethnicity, and gender—are of importance in determining the
process of teaching. Language practices are sites of societal struggle, which are
based on heterogeneous discourses, and articulate much wider social processes
and contexts in which language teaching and learning takes place (Fairclough
1989, 1992, 2003; Miller 2003).
It is in the resources of various discourses that identity is not a unitary, fixed, or
ahistorical personality, but rather is co-constructed, contradictory, and subject to
negotiation and transformation by means of language (Clarke 2008; Hall 1995;
260 Gao Fang
He 1995; Kramsch 1993; Lather 1991; Norton 2000; Ochs 1993; Peirce 1995).
As a hybrid and dynamic phenomenon, identity is well developed as a type of
positioning and it enables individuals to actively engage with the fast changing
landscape of cultural and linguistic capitals of a society. This chapter offers an
account of self-identification and language teaching among ethnic Korean teach-
ers in China, that is, those teachers classified as ethnically Korean (Chaoxianzu
朝鮮族), and demonstrates how their identities are mediated by both the imme-
diate learning community and the broader social milieu.
The Discursive Context of Discourses
Seen as a type of social practice, the concept of discourse makes itself clear that
there is not just one dominant discourse, but that a discourse varies in nature
through its articulation with other discourses over time and space, which comes
to inform individuals’ thoughts and actions on a daily basis (Connolly 1998).
The Korean-Chinese, who are the thirteenth largest non-Han nationality in
China, have a population close to two million and are concentrated in the three
northeastern provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning. The discourses of
“model minority” (Ma 1953) and “hanguk baram” (“South Korean wind”) are
competing and conflicting with the symbolic value adhered to the Chinese lan-
guage and “China’s civilizing project” (Harrell 1995), all of which have particular
implications for language teaching and identity negotiation of Korean-Chinese
teachers.
Model Minority
The “model minority” (youxiu minzu 優秀民族) tag refers to one such dis-
course, which takes for granted that Korean-Chinese are model minority citi-
zens who succeed in education (Gao 2010b). This narrative originally emerged
in November 1951, when Ma Xulun, the Han ethnic minister of education,
singled out Korean-Chinese as an outstanding model for educational accom-
plishments (Ma 1953). Rather than being created by the Korean-Chinese per
se, the discourse was thrust upon them as a result of the perceived political and
economic contributions Korean-Chinese were making to the government (Gao
Identity and Multilingualism 261
2010a).1 It is undeniable that statistically Korean-Chinese possess the highest

level of college attendance and the lowest levels of illiteracy among China’s
ethnic minorities (Ma 2003b). This achievement is realized through bilingual
education, in which the Korean language is adopted as the medium of instruc-
tion. Popular literature cogently asserts that the heart of Korean achievements
is their Confucian-influenced cultural predisposition, which is said to attach a
high priority to the value of education (Choi 2001; Gao 2008; Kim 2003; Lee
1986; Zhou 2000b). However, the essentialism of the “model minority” label has
recently been challenged in consideration of the fact that many Korean-Chinese
experience a variety of academic problems (cf. Jin 2006; Piao 2006; Shen 2006)
and suffer from both academic and economic maladjustment (Kwon 1997). In
spite of this fact, Korean-Chinese are still favorably disposed to the governmental
discourse, which labels the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture a model of
“national integration and progress” (guojia tuanjie jinbu 國家團結進步) (Kim
2003). In contrast to ethnic Koreans in the United States, who are also labeled
a “model minority” and have gradually assimilated into mainstream English lan-
guage practices, Korean culture and language still stand out as distinctive entities
in the larger Chinese society. Among many other factors, the positive image of
the “model minority” from the host society contributes to the high vitality of the
Korean language and culture (Gao 2010a).
“South Korean Wind”
The intense contact between Korean-Chinese and South Koreans on the Korean
Peninsula has been discursively coined the hanguk baram (South Korean wind),
and underlies the lives of Korean-Chinese and their development of allegiances
with special aspects of the Korean language and culture (Gao 2008). Prior to
economic and cultural exchanges with South Korean people, Korean-Chinese
had a close relationship with North Koreans due to the political and geographic
proximity of the two states (Lee 1986). The transition to the predominant influ-
ence of South Korea—hanguk baram—started during the late 1980s, a period
when North Korea’s impact on China gradually faded away. China and South
Korea established formal diplomatic relations in 1992, thereafter, increased
contacts were elevated to a large scale in all matters. In the cultural realm,
262 Gao Fang
South Korean dramas, pop songs, and TV shows became cross-generationally

popular. In the realm of economics, South Korean trade and investment in China
attracted Korean-Chinese with their ethnic and linguistic skills to work for South
Korean companies with others migrating to South Korea as legal and illegal
manual laborers. This pattern of migration is considered an Asian version of “the
American dream” by Korean-Chinese, who allude to it as hanguk baram, which
explicitly reinforces the value of the Korean language along with current trends
in transnational communication. Nevertheless, it is overly optimistic to see only
the unidimensional and positive effects of hanguk baram upon the sustenance
of “Koreanness.” A fifty-year-long separation of divergent political and economic
systems causes a variety of interactions between Korean-Chinese and South
Koreans, and not all of them are as successful as predicted. In reality, Korean-
Chinese laborers are being discriminated against in South Korea, where some of
them experience serious conflicts with South Koreans and encounter industrial
accidents under poor working conditions (Kim 2003). As a result, the dynamics
in transnational contacts, as Choi (2001: 125) argues, push Korean-Chinese to
reach the recognition that they are not “Korean compatriots abroad,” and that, in
fact, “Koreans in the Peninsula are different from them.”
Learning Putonghua
Putonghua, the most widely spoken language in China and the official state lan-
guage, has a strongly symbolic value, namely, that to learn and use Putonghua
means that one becomes Chinese and “typifies the Chinese nation as a whole
and serves the role of presenting a unified face to the world” (Postiglione
1999a: 61). This language is increasingly internationalized next to the Chinese
government’s dissemination of Putonghua in the world as a global brand in
the implementation of China’s soft power (Yang 2007). The recent establish-
ment of Confucius Institutes2 around the world since 2004 is a representative
endeavor that showcases this trend. China’s current Constitution, promulgated
in 1982, explicitly states that all fifty-six ethnic groups should use Putonghua.
It provides a legal backdrop for China’s official stand on multiculturalism and
multilingualism, in which the teaching of ethnic minority languages is regarded
as only a transitional measure to facilitate the mastery of Putonghua (Stites
1999). Political power alone can go only so far in establishing a strong legisla-
tive basis for monolingualism, but economic factors have a greater effect on the
overall social status of the language of the dominant group over other languages.
Implemented at the end of the 1970s, China’s market reforms and open-door
policy have created a demand for more and more graduates entering the labor
market with a proficiency in Chinese language skills. The market-oriented eco-
nomic policy empowers Putonghua as a “golden key” to economic development
(Kormondy 1995), and has an evident backwash on minority communities. An
outcome of marketization for contemporary Korean-Chinese is the marginaliza-
tion of traditional Korean culture in China. The young generations are attracted
by career opportunities in major cities and step out of their Korean communi-
ties. Under these circumstances, the Chinese language permeates their daily lin-
guistic and cultural practices and plays an important role in their opportunities
for upward mobility. In the Korean-concentrated communities of the northeast-
ern regions, Putonghua was introduced beginning in 1993 to Korean children as
early as the first year of primary education (Gao 2009). And in 2002, the number
of Chinese characters that Korean primary students were expected to master was
increased from 1,300 to 2,200–2,500 (it is estimated that 1,800–2,000 characters
are required for written literacy).
China’s Civilizing Project
The legitimacy of the Chinese language matches the state’s “civilizing project,” a
term coined by Stevan Harrell (1995), which holds that the Chinese language
and culture are more advanced and should be promoted among the “backward”
ethnoregional minorities. This project, with its current embodiment in the
assimilative model of state education, has a long history in China. Chinese gov-
ernments have long seen education as a means of:
. . . integrating, controlling, and civilizing the various peoples who inhabit
the border or peripheral regions of what was the empire, then the Republic,
and now is the PRC (Hansen 1999a: xi).
The “civilizing project” narrative, with its political value, to a large degree
serves the aim of national unity and stability (Gao 2010a; Lee 1986). Here the
culture or value system of the dominant group defines the predispositions in
264 Gao Fang
the educational system, thereby preventing other cultures and languages from
gaining any legitimacy. To many Han Chinese, to be cultured is to be versed in
Chinese language and literature and Confucian moral doctrines, and the only
way to acculturate ethnic minorities is to raise their levels of civilization, as
most of their customs and habits are considered “backward” and unfavorable to
socioeconomic advancement (Harrell 1995; Safran 1998). Without exception,
Korean-Chinese are also subject to this discourse, through which the acquisition
of the Chinese language symbolizes social status and recognition (cf. Bourdieu
1991). Any sort of multilingual or multicultural education in Korean schools is
thus distorted by an ambiguous downplaying of Korean history and culture (Gao
2009). Instead, Korean-Chinese students are compelled to learn Han Chinese
history, geography, literature, and politics, not to mention the Han Chinese lan-
guage, in Korean schools.
Taken together, the discourse pertaining to language teaching and learning
among Korean-Chinese confirms the validity of such matters as race, ethnicity,
and linguistic/cultural capital as general parameters. They intersect with each
other and form a complex web of discursive grammars, which underlay the stra-
tegic, context-specific identity negotiation of language teachers outside any fixed
categories of separation, marginalization, integration, or assimilation (cf. Berry
2003).
Methodology
This study examines the identity construction of Korean-Chinese teachers who

are engaged in language teaching within the context of the above matrix of dis-
courses. This small-scale qualitative study attempts to understand the process of
language teaching, through which the teachers’ self-identities are discursively
constructed within the reciprocal influence between the specific school context
and the wider community of language practices. Seventeen teacher participants,
at the time of data collection (September 2006 through January 2007), were
teaching either Korean or Chinese in a Korean school, called FLK in this research
project. At FLK, all subjects are taught in Korean except for Chinese and English
language subjects, for which Putonghua is the medium of instruction. FLK is
located in a small Korean-Chinese bilingual community in the prefecture-level
city of Fushun in Liaoning Province (see Figure 12.1) and offers three years of
Identity and Multilingualism
265
Figure 12.1 Location of Fushun Prefecture in Liaoning Province

266 Gao Fang
preschool and nine years of compulsory education, and accommodates a pre-

dominant Korean intake (88 percent Korean-Chinese out of a total of 327 stu-
dents). FLK shares many of the same challenges faced by other bilingual Korean
schools in China, including: (1) the dramatic decline of Korean-Chinese student
intake owing to the low birth rate and the increasing mobility of the Korean-
Chinese population; (2) the increased number of “left-behind” Korean-Chinese
children who come from families, in which at least one member is exposed
to labor export in South Korea; and (3) the lack of bilingual Korean-Chinese
teachers. At FLK, non-Korean students including Han, Manchu, and Mongols
account for 12 percent of the student population. As far as the seventeen teach-
ers are concerned, all of them graduated from Korean-medium teachers’ colleges
and face potential difficulties in conducting effective bilingual teaching practices.
The seventeen Korean-Chinese teachers, known to the author on a personal
and professional basis, had extensive experience as language teachers, and thus
were suitable research participants. They are third or fourth generation Korean-
Chinese who were born and brought up in China (in the age range of 27 to 45
years old). The teaching staff at FLK remains majority female; sixteen of the par-
ticipants in my study were females and only one male. Eleven teachers taught in
the Korean language, while the rest taught in Chinese. The teachers’ names have
been kept anonymous throughout.
My data has been collected through ethnographic tools such as non-partic-
ipant observation and one-to-one interviews with individual teachers. Over a
period of five months, classes in which the teachers worked were observed for
five periods per week. The selection of classes was to maximize the inclusion of
all the eleven primary classes (two classes in each level from Primary 1 to 5 and
one class in Primary 6) taught by the teachers. Observations concentrated on
the frequently emerging processes of language teaching and classroom routines.
Observation notes were used as the tools of data collecting. Participant teach-
ers participated in semistructured interviews, primarily concerning: How they
constructed their self-identity out of relevant discourses; and how their self-per-
ceptions affected their language teaching pedagogy. Each individual interview
took place in the school meeting room, and lasted from one to two hours. Each
participant was interviewed once only and interviews were audio-recorded and
transcribed.
Class observations were transcribed and used to further guide and compare
classroom events with what participants said during interviews, and to obtain
an overall understanding of their self-identity and teaching pedagogy. A criti-
cal and discursive approach of discourse analysis was employed in this research
(Fairclough 1989, 1995, 2003). Fairclough defines three dimensions of critical
discourse analysis (CDA): description of the formal properties of the text; inter-
pretation of discursive practice of text production; and explanation of the rela-
tionship between practice and social context. In correspondence with the three
dimensions, this analysis at the level of text was focused on vocabulary looking at
the ideological import of words and grammatical features. The level of discursive
practice—how, why, when, or where a text was produced—was taken into con-
sideration. At the level of contextual explanation, the focus was on the interven-
tion of ideological and hegemonic discourses in teaching pedagogy and practice.
Throughout the entire process of data analysis, there was an attempt to identify
patterns and themes from a variety of data and to establish relationships and link-
ages across the data collected.
Korean Identity and Chinese Language Learning
In the realm of education, the value of “Koreanness” in language teaching should

not be taken for granted. As shown by the data, ethnic Korean teachers deem
the Chinese language worthy of an important place in education, while placing
more emphasis on the “performative” aspects of Korean culture through ethnic-
specific extracurricular activities outside the regular curriculum.
The Maintenance of Korean Identity
The seventeen language teachers agreed with the consensus that ethnic Koreans
are a model minority of China. This label brought them confidence in being
Korean-Chinese, a type of identity that was distinct from Han Chinese culture.
One Korean language subject teacher (female, aged 42) remarked:
There are certain things that we think stick with us and that work for us.
One of them is the importance of being ethnic Koreans in China. . . . We
are very proud of being seen as a model minority, a minority with a high
268 Gao Fang
priority on the value of education. Korean-Chinese have the highest cul-

tural and educational accomplishments, which we should be very proud of.
For this teacher, the Korean-Chinese were “an excellent nationality” (youxiu
minzu 優秀民族), which reflects the image of “model minority.” By claiming “we
are very proud of being seen as a model minority, a minority with a high priority
on the value of education,” the teacher sets up a casual relationship between a
high attachment to education and pride in “being ethnic Korean,” and this pride,
in turn, forms one of the main attributes for safeguarding her self-identification as
a Korean-Chinese. The pronouns “we” and “us” are frequently used (three times
for “we” and twice for “us”) in this discursive construction instead of “I” and
“me,” which expresses an assumed sharing of “Koreanness” by all participants in
the community of practice. By saying “the importance of being ethnic Koreans
in China,” the above comment illustrates a strong and clear sense of ethnic roots,
ethnic Koreans are not unhyphenated Chinese but rather Korean-Chinese:
“Chinese citizens and a Korean nationality” (Zhongguo guomin, Chaoxian minzu
中國國民, 朝鮮民族) with “undeniable Korean blood running inside.”
The process of positioning self is intertwined with the activity of comparing,
both implicitly and explicitly, Korean-Chinese with other minority groups, espe-
cially those who are perceived to be “backward” or “restless” and pose a direct
challenge to the government (e.g., Zhou 2000b). One ethnic Korean teacher
(Chinese language subject teacher, female, aged 32) stressed:
Being a Korean, it is always about working hard, about emphasizing eti-
quette, solidarity, cooperation, diligence, and respect for authority, and
eventually about being good in everything. Our ancestors struggled hard to
get to this point. There are certain things that we need to maintain. We’ve
heard that there are some minorities in China such as the Tibetans, who are
always poorly educated with lower incomes. Compared with them, we are
superior.
It is evident from this excerpt that the teacher holds a kind of superior self-
esteem as “being Korean” is always “about being good in everything.” In this
sense, the model minority stereotype becomes an evaluative yardstick of achieve-
ment. That is, “typical Korean achievement,” as sketched out in this stereotype,
becomes a basis for comparison. The use of words like “poorly educated” and
“lower incomes” delivers a positive self-image of the teacher, which is formed in
a comparative fashion with “backward” minorities. Fairclough (2003) assumes

that the self-identification of a text’s producer is, to some extent, constituted
by what the producer commits to in the text. It is the case with this teacher
who employs the example of Tibetans to legitimize the relative superiority of
“Koreanness,” before stressing the need to “maintain” “certain things” she associ-
ates with Korean culture and values.
When interview subjects turn to the government’s policies for ethnic minori-
ties, such as preferential treatment policies, the teachers are even more willing to
speak about who specifically does not have the core values of work and self-suf-
ficiency. Preferential policies as a topic tend to highlight interminority contrasts.
The model minority stereotype seems to create a distinction in the collective
consciousness of Korean-Chinese teachers between the “good,” “model” Korean
minority and those “backward,” “unsuccessful” Tibetan and Uyghur minori-
ties. They remove themselves from the preferential policy, and assume that
the Korean cultural values of self-sufficiency and belief in merit clash with this
system of preferences. One teacher (Korean language subject teacher, female,
aged 35) told me:
I’m not sure that Koreans in particular need it [preferential treatment].
It’s a good thing, definitely, such as the bonus points allocated to college
entrance exam takers. But our students always succeed in all types of exams
without any preferential treatment [laugh], don’t we? I think we just want to
achieve by our own efforts. It might be something that has more to do with
those unsuccessful minorities.
As the excerpt demonstrates, the teacher mentions the preferential policies as

an example to imply that educational achievement of ethnic Koreans is acquired
through their “own efforts” rather than through “bonus points allocated to
college entrance exam takers,” and contrasts this with “unsuccessful minorities,”
making it clear that Korean-Chinese achieve in education “without any prefer-
ential policy.” The use of “without” and “don’t we” attributes their educational
success to Korean cultural qualities.
This emphasis on cultural qualities is a reflection on how these qualities
are perceived to be similar to the Han Chinese. Korean-Chinese, the teachers
asserted, resemble Han Chinese in their insistence on work, education, family,
self-sufficiency, and enterprise. One Korean language subject teacher (female,
270 Gao Fang
aged 27) painted a picture of Korean-Chinese as equally self-sufficient as the

Han Chinese majority:
I was raised with certain Korean values, like discipline, respect, and honesty.
I do feel that those are part of Confucian culture, and are also shared by Han
people. Korean people are not the sort of minorities with special needs. Just
like Han Chinese, we are self-sufficient.
The words “just like” draw a parallel between self-sufficient ethnic Koreans
and Han Chinese people, both of whom are endowed with the values of “disci-
pline, respect, and honesty,” which according to the teacher, is part of Confucian
cultural heritage.
“Koreanness” is also maintained as a direct result of transnational contacts
with South Koreans in the Korean Peninsula. Since the reopening of diplomatic
relation between China and South Korea in the early 1990s, South Korea’s
demonstrated international status and respectability and its increasing trade
and investment in China elevate the value of “Koreanness” in the eyes of many
ethnic Korean teachers. As one Korean language subject teacher (male, aged 35)
claimed:
Our community is called “little Korea” with a large number of Korean
residents. South Korean people come to invest in transnational trade com-
panies and our lives are permeated by South Korean music, fashion, and
dramas—all these are referred to as the “hanguk baram.” For us [Korean-
Chinese], the community becomes a world within a world, in which
“Koreanness” is highly valued.
In this narrative of “a world within a world,” the teacher addresses the effects of
hanguk baram on the sustenance of ethnic culture and customs. In the process of
identity searching, Korean-Chinese teachers come to realize that “South Korean
music, fashion, and dramas,” along with its business investment, become key
markers of “Koreanness,” and thus define who the teachers are contextually in
their “little Korea” community.
Chinese Language Acquisition and Ethnic-Specific Extracurricular

Activities
Preserving ethnic identity, however, does not find its fulfillment in the teachers’
language teaching pedagogy. According to the research findings, the Chinese
language, as a key international language across the world, is viewed as the best
insurance for survival and upward mobility in contrast to the Korean language.
As one Korean language subject teacher (female, aged 45) commented:
I think I’ve changed my attitude towards the Korean language. In the past,
I required my students to have a high level of competency in Korean. They
were required to speak Korean on a daily basis. However, now I think
Chinese is much more important. If they can’t speak Chinese, they won’t
gain status in the social hierarchy of mainstream society.
The prominence given to Chinese in this discursive construction marks a

clear break with the past rather than a more evolutionary change or develop-
mental growth in understanding. This teacher explores where she has been (“in
the past, I required my students to have a high level of competency in Korean”),
and recognizes where she is in the present (“now I think Chinese is much more
important”). The conjunction of “however” presumes the change of attitudes
in terms of languages demanded. The use of modal verbs “can’t” and “wouldn’t”
further confirms the functional value of Chinese to enable success and upward
advancement in the host society.
The Korean language, adversely, seems not to facilitate economic advance-
ment for Korean-Chinese (cf. Gao 2009). The massive mobility of ethnic
Koreans within China, towards areas where South Korean direct investment is
heavily concentrated, has increased the importance of Korean in the workplace.
But, as documented in literature (Kim 2003), South Korean businesses expect
high levels of performance, including a high proficiency in the Chinese language.
The importance of the Chinese language becomes a salient issue for Korean-
Chinese. One Chinese language subject teacher (female, aged 43) argued:
Our children receive all their education in the Korean language. In Korean
schools, Chinese is only taught as a language subject. The medium of
instruction is still the Korean language. Therefore, our children are falling
behind Han children. They can’t compete with the Han Chinese with their
superior Chinese language skills. One day they may be at the periphery of
Chinese society.
Here bilingual schooling, in which “Chinese is only taught as a language subject,”

is perceived to place ethnic Korean children in a disadvantaged position when
competing with their Han Chinese counterparts. At FLK, Chinese language
lessons are available from the commencement of preschool. But FLK gives
272 Gao Fang
equal attention to three languages—Korean, Chinese, and English—with each

accounting for 17.14 percent of the curriculum load. However, the trilingual
model when compared to bilingual education (Chinese and English) in Han
schools gives rise to more difficulties for Korean children in Chinese language
learning (cf. the chapters by Tsung and Zhao in this volume). My observations
indicate that Korean-Chinese children undertake fewer Chinese lessons than
their Han-Chinese peers. The perception that “our children are falling behind
Han children” is ascribed to their lack of “superior Chinese language skills,”
which is tied to the possible marginalization of Korean-Chinese from the main-
stream economy in the future.
Korean-Chinese teachers make it clear that bilingual Korean schools should
pay more attention to Chinese language teaching in spite of the fact that Korean-
Chinese students were mostly born and raised in China, and have adapted well
to mainstream Chinese society by absorbing many Chinese cultural elements as
their own. For the teachers, Chinese language learning comes to symbolize a con-
scious and deeper cultural integration into the mainstream society. According to
one teacher (Korean language subject, female, aged 40):
China is rapidly developing its economy. I believe that China will be more
developed than South Korea in the near future. I would like to live in China
rather than South Korea. Chinese [Putonghua] is our official language.
More and more foreigners are even speaking it. As Chinese citizens, we
Koreans need to blend more fully into Chinese society. Our students need
to be competent in Chinese.
By beginning with “I believe,” this teacher indicates her faith in the rapid devel-
opment of the Chinese economy, which produces the functional value of the
Chinese language, with even “foreigners” now learning to speak it. This argument
echoes the increasing expansion of Putonghua in non-Chinese speaking coun-
tries (Yang 2007). The use of the inclusive “we” and “our” instead of “I” and “my”
functions as a discursive strategy for making the statement applicable to all the
members in the community of language practice. The modal verbs “would like
to” and “need to” show the aspirations of this teacher to teach Chinese effectively
in order to “blend more into Chinese society.” As another teacher (Chinese lan-
guage subject, female, aged 28) noted:
Learning Chinese well is good enough for our Korean children, I think. If
our children are able to know the Korean language, and are able to commu-
nicate in Korean within the Korean community, it is already good enough.
But in China they have to be fluent in Chinese. The mainstream society has
decided this, hasn’t it?
This teacher conveys the notion that the Chinese language is now a standard for
particular qualities, such as symbolic power, which can facilitate the participa-
tion of Korean-Chinese in society. The ability to speak the national language is
a key determinant in allowing members of a minority group to share state and
market resources with their fellow Han citizens (cf. Zhou 2005). As this teacher
says, “mainstream society has decided this.” From this perspective, ethnic Korean
children have to negotiate between their home culture and the larger society and
culture, and code-switch between the two languages, depending on the context
of language use (“Korean community” vs. “mainstream society”).
The legitimization of Chinese by contrasting opportunities for upward mobil-
ity in China and in South Korea has other implications. It seems that the effect
of the “hanguk baram” has become ambiguous and complex concerning the dif-
ference it makes to ethnic Koreans’ social status and any possibility of upward
advancement. According to the teachers, residence and work in South Korea has
become lesser desirable. Labor export to South Korea, ironically drives Korean-
Chinese to the importance of the Chinese language in relation to the rising eco-
nomic power of China (Gao 2010b). For one Korean language subject teacher
(female, aged 44):
Many Koreans go to South Korea and engage in manual labor including
serving in restaurants, becoming house servants, or working in the indus-
trial sector. Although they are well paid, these jobs are dirty or dangerous
with low social status. South Korean people actually look down upon us.
I don’t want our children to continue doing these [sorts of jobs]. They
deserve a bright future in China rather than in South Korea.
Working in South Korea is undesirable for this teacher because most jobs are
characterized as “3-D”—dirty, difficult, and dangerous—and thus relegate ethnic
Koreans to a low social stratum in South Korean as illegal immigrants (e.g., Kim
2003). The poor working condition and the lack of social welfare for Korean-
Chinese laborers makes working in South Korea less attractive when considering
274 Gao Fang
the future careers of Korean-Chinese children, as represented by the teacher’s

argument that “our children” “deserve a bright future in China.”
If the existence of “Koreanness” requires a cultural expectation or self-explo-
ration in teaching about the issues of Korean culture, the teachers at FLK tend
to foster Korean culture and identity through extracurricular activities. As one
Korean subject teacher (female, aged 30) expressed:
Korean education is different from the education in other schools. It holds
a two-fold meaning: compulsory education and ethnic education. Korean
school is obligated to transmit Korean culture, tradition, and customs to the
next generation . . . The extracurricular activities act as a platform for the
transmission of Korean tradition and values.
This teacher argues that Korean education is different from “regular education”
(zhenggui jiaoyu 正規教育) because it is “obligated to transmit Korean culture,
tradition, and customs to the next generation.” As observed, FLK offered six
special classes including dance, information technology, English, encirclement
chess, practice (making pickled vegetables), and reading for preschoolers and
primary students outside of the regular curriculum system. Among these six
classes, dance (including Korean music and dance) and practice are ethnic-spe-
cific activities and attract many visitors from South Korea and frequent cultural
exchanges from South Korean cultural organizations. Through a series of open-
to-the-public activities such as cultural performances involving Korean parents
as voluntary helpers, FLK plays a significant role as a cultural and psychological
center for the promotion of ethnic culture in the community.
Discussion and Conclusion: Language Maintenance and Genuine

In considering the discursive construction of an evolving identity and language

pedagogy in a given community of practice, we need to take into account indi-
vidual language practice and the ways it reconnects with relevant social, histori-
cal, cultural, and political narratives. The analysis of linguistic and pedagogical
discourses does not seek to judge the “truth” of these discourses, but rather to
position the self-identity, and teaching pedagogy embedded within the context
of these discourses. In this chapter, various linguistic grammars intersect and
come to inform individual teachers’ self-definition and language teaching prac-

tices. Their identities are mediated through language discourses, and the iden-
tity construction may reproduce the hegemonic discourses or set up a counter
discourse (cf. Miller 2003). For the seventeen Korean-Chinese teachers at FLK,
the moniker “model minority” is closely tied to their sense of cultural superior-
ity and educational success, and becomes an important factor in the formation
of a kind of self-empowerment that stresses ethnic identity. In the case of the
Korean-Chinese, this self-empowerment is also bolstered by the increased value
of “Koreanness” through contacts with South Koreans (cf. Zhao, this volume).
A dominant language, which according to He Baogang (this volume) can
function like a form of “linguistic imperialism,” is imbued with linguistic compe-
tence, i.e., the ability to use the language that is most likely to be paid attention
to and recognized as acceptable; this implies that those with insufficient com-
petency will be sidelined in social stratification and mobility. This is certainly
the case with Putonghua, as demonstrated by the Korean-Chinese teachers in
this study. China’s “monolingual market economy” has strengthened the peda-
gogical value of the Chinese language, and this attitude is reflected in the eyes of
these teachers and through their perceptions about the economic marginaliza-
tion and discrimination faced by Korean-Chinese laborers in South Korea. This
worldview causes the teachers to re-orientate the teaching and preservation of
“Koreanness” into more performative cultural practices and cultural exchanges
with South Koreans, while the value of the Korean language declines. In other
words, culture and language are bifurcated when it comes to Korean identity at
FLK, which in turn hollows out the content and meaning of “Koreanness.” This
contradiction in identity orientation and teaching pedagogy is an evident articu-
lation of the multiplicity and intrinsic complexity of discourses.
This chapter draws our attention to the challenges associated with maintain-
ing ethnic languages and their relevance to the building of genuine multicultural
education as mediated in China’s pedagogical context, where the instrumental
nature of state education is fostered by Chinese culturalism (see Postiglione,
this volume). The often-cited duoyuan yiti formula of Fei Xiaotong highlights
the unstable duality of national unification and cultural pluralism in China. And
within this paradigm, education for China’s fifty-five ethnic minorities does
not take any linguistic or cultural “heteroglossia” or “translingualism” into full
276 Gao Fang
consideration (see Bilik, this volume). Managing difference is thus one of the
greatest challenges of a multicultural China, especially in today’s era of globali-
zation where any monocultural, monolingual, monoethnic nation-state with a
shared common identity seems to exist only in imagination (Anderson 1991).
National institutions like state schooling require flexibility to better meet the
needs of all ethnic groups living together in a pluralistic society. The recent efforts
at providing locally relevant curriculum materials (xiangtu jiaocai 鄉土教材) is
a proactive phenomenon of multiculturalism in reforming school curriculum.
In sum, acculturation strategies (whether by group or individual choice) are
subject to the dominant group’s power and expectations. As Berry (2003) argues,
an integrative multiculturalism/acculturation (one that embraces both heritage
and mainstream cultures) is only possible when the dominant society adopts an
inclusive attitude towards cultural/linguistic diversity. Otherwise, any accultura-
tion process that is purely orientated towards national unity will result in what
Postiglione (this volume) terms “plural monoculturalism.” In a genuine multi-
culturalism, minority people’s ethnicity and languages can become a positive
force and strength in their personal empowerment (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000).
However, even where a plural society is inclusive and accepting of difference,
there is bound to be variation in the relative acceptance of specific cultural, racial,
or religious groups and their cultural practices. In contrast to Chinese minorities
like the Uyghurs and Tibetans (see Zuliyati and Ma, this volume), the Korean-
Chinese experience only minimal ethnocentrism and discrimination, making it
easier for them to preserve their sense of identity, and permitting them, within
the current global migration pattern, to maintain valued transcultural/transna-
tional elements for their linguistic and cultural rights (cf. Banks 2004b).
Part IV
Styles, Stereotypes, and Preferences:

Hurdles for Minority Education
13
Intellectual Styles and Their
Implications for Multicultural
Education in China
Li-fang Zhang
Within the realm of multicultural education, much emphasis is placed on the

unique characteristics of particular cultural groups. In contrast, this chapter
places its stress on some of the commonalities as well as acknowledging the
unique characteristics of students from different cultural settings with regard
to their intellectual styles: that is, their preferences for information processing,
both at individual and group levels. It highlights the fact that multiculturalism,
more broadly, and ethnic minority education in China, more specifically, cannot
be viewed as a one-size-fits-all system and pedagogy. It further demonstrates that
the identification of different intellectual styles can facilitate a better understand-
ing of the complex ways in which different communities and individuals respond
to diversity within the curriculum, while assisting in promoting better learning
outcomes at both the individual and community levels.
The chapter is divided into four parts. The first defines the key concepts in the
chapter: culture and intellectual styles. The second part explores several influen-
tial models of culture and puts forward a research hypothesis on the relationships
between culture and intellectual styles based on the nature of intellectual styles and
on the characteristics of each of the four cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede
(1980). The third part provides research evidence that both supports and refutes
the research hypothesis. Finally, the chapter concludes by discussing the implica-
tions of the research findings in relation to multicultural education in the PRC, a
nation-state that comprises fifty-six officially recognized ethnic groups or minzu (民
族).
280 Li-fang Zhang
Culture and Intellectual Styles
What is culture? What do we mean by “cross-cultural”? What constitutes a “mul-

ticultural education”? There have been many insightful definitions of culture.
Following Hofstede (1980: 25), the author defines culture as “the collective pro-
gramming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one category of people
from another.” This chapter restricts its survey of cross-cultural studies of intel-
lectual styles to cultural distinctions anchored in countries and regions or ethnic
groups within countries. Furthermore, embracing Banks’ (2010a: 3) notion of
“multicultural education,” that is, “the idea that all students, regardless of their
gender, social class, and ethnic, racial, or cultural characteristics—should have
an equal opportunity to learn in school,” this chapter argues that students, irre-
spective of their cultural backgrounds, should have an equal opportunity to capi-
talize on their preferred intellectual styles and to develop the styles that would
prepare them for tomorrow’s world.
Intellectual Styles
An intellectual style refers to one’s preferred way of processing information and

dealing with tasks (Zhang and Sternberg 2005, 2006). It pertains to both individ-
uals and cultural groups formed along different socialization variables, including
age, gender, academic discipline, ethnicity, and occupation. The term “intel-
lectual style” is used as a generic one that represents the meanings of all style
constructs postulated in the past several decades, with or without the root word
“style.” These include, but are not limited to cognitive style, conceptual tempo,
decision-making and problem-solving style, learning style, learning approach,
mind style, perceptual style, thinking style, and teaching style.
In the “threefold model of intellectual styles” proposed by Zhang and Sternberg
(2005, 2006), styles are grouped into three broad categories: Type I, Type II, and
Type III styles. Type I intellectual styles denote preferences for tasks that provide
low degrees of structure, that require individuals to process information in a more
complex way, and that allow originality and high levels of freedom to do things in
one’s own way. These preferences correspond to those often expressed by highly
creative individuals or groups. Type II intellectual styles suggest preferences for
Intellectual Styles and Their Implications for Multicultural Education in China 281
tasks that are structured, that allow individuals or groups to process information
in a more simplistic way, and that require conformity to traditional ways of doing
things and high levels of respect for authority. These preferences are consistent
with those frequently observed in people with lower creative potential. Type III
styles may manifest the characteristics of either Type I or Type II styles, depending
on the stylistic demands of a specific situation.
Largely based on two criteria (popularity and empirical evidence), Zhang and
Sternberg (2005, 2006) organized ten existing style models/constructs in terms of
the threefold model of intellectual styles: field dependence-independence (Witkin
1962); mode of thinking/brain dominance (Torrance 1988); reflectivity-impulsiv-
ity (Kagan 1965); adaptation-innovation (Kirton 1976); thinking style (Sternberg
1988); personality type (Jung 1923); career interest type (Holland 1973); diver-
gent-convergent thinking (Guilford 1967); mind style (Gregorc 1979); and learn-
ing approaches/study processes (Biggs 1978). Within each of these models, some
individual styles satisfy the description of Type I styles, some fit into the description
of Type II styles, while others meet with the definition of Type III styles (see Table
13.1).
Theoretical Models of Culture and Conceptual Links to Intellectual

Styles
In the broad cross-cultural literature, scholars in different academic fields have

constructed cultural-theoretical models. For example, in anthropology, Hall
(1976) proposed a cultural classification of high-context culture and low-context
culture. In psychology, founded on their study of the self-construct of differ-
ent people across cultures, Markus and Kitayama (1991) divided cultures into
interdependent-self ones and independent-self ones. Although these models
could facilitate a cogent argument in favor of the impact of culture on intellectual
styles, the cultural dimensions described in Hofstede’s (1980) theoretical model
in the field of management are selected for guiding this chapter because the con-
ceptual links between these cultural dimensions and the intellectual styles under
discussion are the most obvious. Moreover, Hofstede’s model distinguishes itself
from the other models by its dealing with multiple dimensions of culture.
282
Table 13.1 Intellectual styles

Style type Type I Type II Type III
a
Learning approach Deep Surface Achieving
b
Career personality type Artistic Conventional Realistic, investigative, social,
enterprising
c
Mode of thinking Holistic Analytic Integrative
d
Personality type Intuitive, perceiving Sensing, Judging Thinking, feeling, introver-
sion, extraversion
e
Mind style Concrete random Concrete sequential Abstract random, abstract
Style construct
sequential
f
Decision-making style Innovation Adaptation
g
Conceptual tempo Reflectivity Impulsivity
h
Structure of intellect Divergent thinking Convergent thinking
i
Perceptual style Field independent Field dependent
j
Thinking style Legislative, judicial, global, Executive, local, monarchic, Oligarchic, anarchic, internal,
hierarchical conservative external
Source: Zhang and Sternberg 2005. Reproduced with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media.
Note: Theoretical foundations: aBiggs’s theory of student learning, bHolland’s theory of career personality types, cTorrance’s construct of brain
dominance, dJung’s theory of personality types, eGregorc’s model of mind styles, f Kirton’s model of decision-making styles, gKagan’s model of
reflectivity-impulsivity conceptual tempo, hGuilford’s model of structure of intellect, iWitkin’s construct of field-dependence/independence,
j
Sternberg’s theory of mental self-government.
Li-fang Zhang
Hofstede’s Theory of Culture and Intellectual Styles
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are the result of his analysis of a database estab-
lished by a multinational corporation (IBM). Of the seventy-one countries for
which survey data were available, the sample sizes of forty countries were consid-
ered to be large enough to allow reliable comparison. The survey was designed
for tapping the employees’ basic cultural values. The four basic dimensions are
power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism (versus collectivism), and
masculinity (versus femininity).
1. Power Distance: The basic issue involved in power distance is human inequality.
It refers to the extent to which the less powerful members of a society accept and
expect that power is distributed unequally. The level of power distance is socially
determined and is endorsed by followers as much as by leaders. Jones and Herbert
(2000) suggested that a small power-distance society1 is conducive to creativity
because it allows the individual more freedoms. On the contrary, a large power-
distance society tends to stifle creativity because it puts much stronger emphasis
on hierarchies, rules, and conformance. In cognitive terms, this would mean that in
societies of larger power distance, people with less power would tend to accept the
ideas of the more powerful players without questioning, and people with less power
would rely, to some extent, on the ones with more power to think and make deci-
sions for them. Meanwhile, the opposite of all of this would be true in societies of
smaller power distance.
2. Uncertainty Avoidance: Uncertainty avoidance pertains to a society’s tolerance
for ambiguity. It suggests the levels of comfort (or discomfort) of the members of
a society with unstructured situations. People from low uncertainty-avoidance cul-
tures tend to be more tolerant of new ideas and are less rule-oriented. By contrast,
people from high uncertainty-avoidance cultures tend to be less tolerant of new ideas
and they have a propensity for acquiring clarity by seeking rules and regulations. In
cognitive terms, this might suggest that people from higher uncertainty-avoidance
cultures may reduce uncertainty by, at times, avoiding thinking for themselves and by
demanding clear answers and guidance from other people. At the same time, people
from low uncertainty-avoidance cultures tend to be more reflective and to think in
more relativistic terms. They better tolerate ambiguity.
284 Li-fang Zhang
3. Individualism versus Collectivism: This dimension concerns the relationship

between the individual and the collectivity in a given society. Not only does this
relationship refer to people’s ways of living together (e.g., in families), but also “it is
intimately linked with societal norms in the sense of value systems of major groups
of the population” (Hofstede 1980: 214). Individualist societies are more tolerant
of individual thoughts and behaviors. Thus, individuals residing in such societies are
less concerned with doing the “safe” things and are more willing to take risks. On
the contrary, collectivist societies are less tolerant of distinctively individual thoughts
and behaviors. It follows that people living in such societies are more concerned
about doing things in ways that are approved by other members of the society, and
such approval is often achieved by avoiding risk-taking. In cognitive terms, people
from individualist societies tend to think in ways that defy the crowd, whereas people
from collectivist societies tend to think in ways that communicate conformity.
4. Masculinity versus Femininity: This dimension refers to the distribution of
emotional roles between males and females. For males, the predominant socializa-
tion pattern is to be more assertive, whereas for females, it is to be more nurturing.
Hofstede (1980) contended that the stability of sex-role patterns is more socialized
than biologically determined. In masculine societies, assertiveness and decisiveness
are more valued. By contrast, rule following and obedience are much more appreci-
ated in feminine societies. In cognitive terms, people from masculine cultures tend to
be engaged in new ways of thinking, whereas people from feminine cultures tend to
be engaged in more conventional thinking.2
By the year 2001, Hofstede had obtained an index on each of the four cultural
dimensions for sixty-six countries. Although there were some exceptions, a general
trend was identified. Broadly speaking, the economically more developed countries
usually fall on one end of the four continua (low power distance = Lpd; low uncer-
tainty avoidance = Lua; individualism = I; and masculinity = M: collectively referred
to as “LpdLuaIM” for the sake of brevity), while economically less developed coun-
tries normally fall on the other end of the four continua (higher power distance =
Hpd; high uncertainty avoidance = Hua; collectivism = C; and femininity = F:
referred to as “HpdHuaCF”).
Based on Hofstede’s (2001) calculations at the time, China as an aggregate
society fell largely on the HpdHuaCF end of the four continua. However, bearing
in mind that China is a country comprised of fifty-six different ethnic groups, one
could anticipate that people of different ethnicities would exhibit different indices on
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, and thus express preferences for different intellectual
styles.
The Hypothesis
If one cross-examines what Type I intellectual styles entail as described in the

previous section and the characteristics of Hofstede’s LpdLuaIM societies, one
observes a resemblance between the two, although the former represents indi-
vidual characteristics and the latter societal ones. By the same token, one could
easily detect the correspondence between the characteristics of Type II intellec-
tual styles and those of HpdHuaCF societies.
Thus, based on the conceptual similarities between intellectual styles and
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, we might expect that people from Hofstede’s
LpdLuaIM countries (which are usually economically more advanced with
higher levels of what our society defines as “modernity”) tend to employ Type I
intellectual styles and that people from Hofstede’s HpdHuaCF countries (often
economically less developed with lower levels of modernity) tend to employ
Type II intellectual styles.
We can extend this hypothesis to individual ethnic groups within countries.
That is, people from Hofstede’s LpdLuaIM groups (typically the predominant
and/or most advanced ethnic groups of a country) tend to employ Type I styles
and that people from Hofstede’s HpdHuaCF groups (typically marginalized
ethnic minority groups of a country) tend to employ Type II styles.
However, it should be cautioned that there could be significant variations in
intellectual styles among different cultural groups (including ethnic groups).
Indeed, there are also considerable differences in intellectual styles among indi-
viduals within any given cultural group. In the context of the present chapter,
and with particular reference to China, it could be anticipated that significant
style differences would be found among people from different ethnic groups.
Furthermore, based on Hofstede’s articulation that a cultural group’s position on
each of his four continua is highly dependent on its economy, a specific hypothe-
sis can be reached: Within China, those ethnic groups that enjoy relatively more
economic prosperity (i.e., the Han majority) would tend to fall on Hofstede’s
286 Li-fang Zhang
LpdLuaIM end of the four continua and would be more likely to use Type I
intellectual styles, whereas those ethnic groups (e.g., Tibetans and Uyghurs)
who reside in places where the economy is less advanced would tend to fall on
the HpdHuaCF end of the continua and would be more likely to use Type II
intellectual styles.
Weighing up the Research Evidence
The impact of culture on people’s intellectual styles seems inevitable and the above
research hypothesis can be considered reasonable. Nonetheless, the following
question arises: Is there any research evidence and data to support this hypothesis?
Without a doubt, the answer is affirmative. However, there is also plenty of evi-
dence that rejects the hypothesis. In this part, both types of research evidence will
be presented, with more emphasis being given to research findings that challenge
the hypothesis. In doing so, as stated earlier, the chapter highlights the common
characteristics of intellectual styles shared by students from various cultural back-
grounds. Moreover, to demonstrate the culture-specificity and universality of intel-
lectual styles, findings obtained in China will be reviewed within the larger context of
research evidence identified worldwide.
Studies Supporting the Hypothesis
In elucidating the relationship between culture and intellectual styles, Zhang

(2013) presents extensive research evidence that supports the above hypothesis.
For example, a series of studies based on one of the classical style constructs—
Witkin’s (1954) field-dependence/independence3 have done precisely such a
job. Studies conducted by Witkin and his colleagues (Witkin, Dyke, and Faterson
1962) suggested that, compared with school children of other countries, chil-
dren in the United States were generally more field independent. Subsequent
investigations among cultural groups within the United States (i.e., African-
Americans, American Indians) found that children from minority groups tend to
be more field dependent than Caucasian children. At the same time, a number of
studies conducted among children from less economically developed countries
in Africa revealed a similar relationship between culture and field dependence/
independence. For instance, Berry (1966) and Dawson (1966) investigated

the field-dependence/independence levels of children of tribal groups in Sierra
Leone; Wober (1966) studied Nigerian groups; and MacArthur (1970) and
Siann (1970) conducted their research among Zambian young adolescents.
Consistently, these groups were shown to be more field dependent across several
measures of field dependence/independence (e.g., Rod and Frame, Block
Design, and the Embedded Figures tests).
The support for the hypothesis on the relationship between intellectual styles and
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions can also be found in some of the more recent studies,
although to a much lesser extent. At the national level, Engelbrecht and Natzel
(1997) found that African American fourth and fifth graders were significantly more
field-independent than South African fourth and fifth graders. At the within-culture
level, results from several studies (e.g., Bennett 2002) also concluded that African
American students tended to be more field dependent and that their Caucasian
peers showed a propensity for being more field independent.
Research evidence supporting the hypothesis has also been obtained by studies
based on other style constructs. For example, adopting Sternberg’s (1988, 1997)
thinking style construct and using both quantitative and qualitative research
methods, Zhang and her colleagues (Zhang, Fu, and Jiao 2008; Zhang et al. 2012)
investigated the intellectual styles of university students and academics in several
major cities in mainland China as well as in Gansu and Tibet where the researchers
studied the intellectual styles of their Tibetan research participants.
One recent study (Zhang et al. 2012) found that compared with Han university
students in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai, Tibetan students in Gansu and Tibet
were significantly more conservative and rule-oriented in their thinking styles. That
is to say, Tibetan students tended to use what Zhang and Sternberg (2005) call “Type
II intellectual styles.” In order to achieve a better understanding of the factors that
may affect Tibetan university students’ thinking styles, the researchers conducted
two focus group interviews with Tibetan scholars and university students. This
interview data revealed that the majority of Tibetan students were examination-
oriented and that they closely followed teachers’ instructions. Because students
and teachers had only one set of textbooks, teaching was essentially textbook-
based and teacher-centered. Students commented: “achieving good examination
results are very important,” because unless they scored 75 points (100 points
288 Li-fang Zhang
being the full mark) in 70 percent (or above) of courses taken, students would
not be awarded a Bachelor’s degree. Consequently, the majority of students pre-
ferred to gather together to carry out their learning tasks according to teachers’
instructions and to figure out the correct answers to the assignment or potential
test questions (Type II intellectual styles).
These interviews with Tibetan scholars and university students also revealed
two other major factors that had shaped the Type II intellectual styles of Tibetan
students. First, modern Tibetan education is strongly influenced by the monastic
tradition typified by recitation of the scriptures. As mentioned earlier, Tibetan
education features a teacher lecturing from the textbooks and students passively
receiving knowledge. As both the scholar and student interviewees repeatedly
pointed out, listening to teachers is critical for students to reach high levels of
achievement. A question that arises is: Has not China’s higher education been
going through a series of educational reforms that place great importance on
fostering creative thinking? The answer to this question is surely affirmative.
Nonetheless, compared with the rest of the country, Tibet is a special case of
educational reforms—it has progressed more slowly than other provinces in
China. It should be understood that Tibet is geographically remote from major
cities of China. Tibet is an autonomous region and Tibetan education is deeply
rooted in the monastic tradition. In fact, many Tibetan academics attended rural
schools staffed by lamas and monks who resumed secular life and by other types
of instructors schooled in the “old society.” At school, these academics learned by
reading from the scriptures and legends and by hearing stories. Heavily affected
by the manner in which they were taught, and with a lack of teaching materi-
als, these academics tend to teach their own students in the same way that they
had been taught. Therefore, as suggested by results from the data in this study,
Tibetan minority students were significantly more norm-favoring than were stu-
dents in the Han majority in their ways of processing information.
The second key factor deemed to have shaped Tibetan students into a prefer-
ence for Type II styles was the relatively backward economic situation in Tibet.
Interviewees in the study constantly emphasized the fact that Tibet was lagging
far behind the rest of the country with respect to its economy and moderniza-
tion. For example, again, aside from textbooks, there was not much else for stu-
dents to read. Whereas various academic talks are available to students almost
every day on the campuses from the three major cities involved in the study, a
single seminar would be celebrated as a big annual or biannual event on the Tibet
University campus. This backward economic situation, along with the strong
stress on examinations, may have prevented students from focusing on bigger
issues around them, and thus from using Type I styles. Instead, they are forced to
focus on the concrete details and to use the norm-favoring Type I styles in both
learning and other types of activities.
In another study (Zhang, Fu, and Jiao 2008), researchers examined the think-
ing styles that university academics preferred to use in teaching (i.e., teaching
styles) as well as the learning styles of university students in Nanjing and Tibet.
Results indicated that Tibetan students’ learning styles were significantly more
norm-favoring (again, higher on Type II styles) than were those of students
from Nanjing. Moreover, the results from university academics were strikingly
similar with those from students: Tibetan university academics reported a much
more frequent use of Type II teaching styles, whereas university academics from
Nanjing reported a much more frequent use of Type I teaching styles. It is con-
ceivable that academics’ teaching styles are affected by their education system,
culture, and economy, as discussed earlier.
Studies Challenging the Hypothesis
The studies discussed above that lent support to the hypothesis on the rela-
tionship between culture and styles are merely examples from a multitude of
studies yielding similar results, but are grounded in a variety of style models.
Nonetheless, the hypothesized relationship between culture and intellectual
styles has also been disconfirmed by a large number of studies. In fact, some
studies reached the exact opposite conclusion. For instance, after reviewing a
series of studies conducted between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s, Bagley
and Mallick (1998) found that students who were from, in Hofstede’s terms, cul-
tures known for their high individualism and smaller power distances (in this
case, students from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States) were
more field dependent, whereas students from cultures that have been generally
agreed by anthropologists to be collectivist cultures that value conformity (in this
case, students from mainland China and Japan) were more field independent.
290 Li-fang Zhang
Similarly, some research comparing the learning approaches (based on Biggs’s

construct of learning approaches) of Asian students with those of Caucasian stu-
dents also refuted the stereotypical view that Asian-descent students are rote
learners (e.g., Brand, 2001). Moreover, there is evidence demonstrating that
white American and Australian students exhibited a greater tendency to rely on
the surface approach to learning than did their Asian peers, including students
from Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Nepal (e.g., Brand, 2001).
Studies Revealing that Type I Styles Are Valued Regardless of Cultural

Contexts
Apart from the above two types of studies that arrived at opposite conclusions,
with one supporting the hypothesis and the other challenging it, a third type of
study also emerged from the literature. Findings from the third type of study
suggest that regardless of the cultural contexts, Type I styles are more valued
than are Type II styles. A case in point is the research findings concerning the
significant relationships between Type I intellectual styles and a wide range of
positive attributes, including adaptive personality traits (e.g., openness, conscien-
tiousness, tolerance, and optimism), adaptive learning behaviors (e.g., approach
to success motivation, higher levels of metacognition), adaptive developmental
outcomes (e.g., cognitive development, career development, and psychosocial
development), and adaptive psychological well-being (e.g., better mental health,
higher levels of job satisfaction, lower levels of anxiety, and better management
of emotions). These findings transcend not only different cultural contexts but
also studies employing different style models (see Zhang 2006; Zhang and Fan
2011 for details).
For example, in studying the association between intellectual styles and
personality traits, findings obtained from the studies rooted in various style
models in different cultural contexts have been strikingly similar. Early in 1972,
Campbell and Douglas studied the relationships of both field dependence/inde-
pendence and reflectivity/impulsivity to young children’s responses to the threat
of frustration. Research participants were sixty boys (twenty each of 6, 8, and
10 years of age) who were studying at a school in a Montreal suburban area in
Canada. Results suggested that students scoring higher on the field independent
and reflective styles were shown to be optimistic in the face of threatened frustra-
tion. At the same time, students scoring higher on the field dependent and the
impulsive styles demonstrated higher levels of pessimism. That is to say, Type I
styles (field independent and reflective styles) showed more adaptive values than
did Type II styles (field dependent and impulsive styles).
The adaptive values of field independent and reflective styles were echoed by
the results obtained from another group of Canadian young children (Schleifer
and Douglas 1973). This time, the two style constructs were examined in rela-
tion to the levels of moral maturity. The research sample comprised twenty-nine
boys and girls whose ages ranged from 6 years, 3 months to 7 years, 3 months.
Students who obtained higher field-independence and reflectivity scores were
rated by their teachers as having achieved higher levels of moral maturity.
In the United States, Leventhal and Sisco (1996) investigated the relation-
ship between field-dependence/independence and locus of control among sev-
enty-two college students. Findings revealed a significantly positive association
between field independence and internal locus of control, again, an attribute that
is widely deemed to be more adaptive (than external locus of control).
As one of the important style constructs, learning approaches (alternatively
known as learning preferences and study processes) has also been tested with
personality traits. Furthermore, the adaptive value of Type I styles (in this
context, the deep or meaning-oriented learning approach) was demonstrated
once again. For example, in a first study, Watkins and Dahlin (1997) investigated
the relationship between learning approaches as assessed by Biggs’ (1987) Study
Process Questionnaire and one of the most widely researched personality traits,
that is, self-esteem. Research participants were 149 students majoring in educa-
tion at the University of Karlstad, Sweden. Students who reported higher levels
of self-esteem were also found to adopt the deep learning approach. By contrast,
students reporting lower levels of self-esteem tended to adopt the surface learn-
ing approach.
Using a different measure of learning preferences (Vermunt’s Inventory of
Learning Styles 1992) and collecting their data from another country, Busato et
al. (1999) also proved the adaptive value of Type I styles. Participants’ personal-
ity traits were assessed by Elshout and Akkerman’s (1975) five-factor test that
measures the well-known “Big Five” in psychology: openness, conscientiousness,
292 Li-fang Zhang
agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism. Data were collected from 1,072

first-year psychology students at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The most prominent results were that the openness personality trait was posi-
tively related to the meaning-directed learning approach and that neuroticism
was positively associated with the undirected learning approach.
Thinking styles have been examined with at least three types of personality
traits. Between 2001 and 2003, Zhang and her colleagues conducted several
studies (e.g., Zhang 2002a, 2002b; Zhang and Huang 2001) examining the
relationships between thinking styles and the Big Five personality traits (Costa
and McCrae 1995) in Hong Kong and mainland China. For example, in a first
study, Zhang and Huang (2001) administered the Thinking Styles Inventory
(Sternberg and Wagner 1992) and the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa and
McCrae 1992) to 408 university students in Shanghai, mainland China. The
participants also reported their extracurricular activities (leadership experience
and hobbies). It was found that thinking styles and personality dimensions over-
lapped to a degree after students’ extracurricular activities were taken into con-
sideration. As predicted, Type I thinking styles were significantly related to the
extraversion and openness personality dimensions—personality traits deemed
to be more adaptable, whereas Type II thinking styles were related to neurot-
icism—a personality trait widely considered to be undesirable. These findings
were subsequently replicated among 144 university students in Hong Kong
(Zhang 2002a) and among 267 university students in Beijing (Zhang 2002b).
Furthermore, these findings were confirmed by data collected from the United
States, Norway, and Iran.
In a first study, Fjell and Walhovd (2004) from the University of Oslo exam-
ined the relationship of thinking styles to the Big Five personality traits (meas-
ured by the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised, Costa and McCrae 1995).
Participants were 107 university students from the United States and a conveni-
ent sample of 114 people consisting of university students, employees from a
local hospital, and players of a local football club in Norway. Results indicated
that in general, openness and conscientiousness were significantly correlated
with Type I thinking styles, whereas neuroticism was strongly associated with
Type II thinking styles.
Similarly, when a group of Iranian scholars (Shokri et al. 2006) investigated

whether or not the Big Five personality traits (measured by the NEO Five-Factor
Inventory) affected the thinking styles of 419 college students in Iran, they
obtained three key findings. First, openness and conscientiousness had a signifi-
cantly positive effect on the judicial, global, and liberal styles (all being Type I).
Second, neuroticism had a significantly positive impact on the executive, local,
and conservative styles (all being Type II styles). Third, the openness person-
ality trait had a significantly negative effect on the conservative thinking style.
Thus, findings from more recent data obtained in Iran, Norway, and the United
States supported the results from previous studies (e.g., Zhang and Huang 2001)
conducted in the Chinese context. All these studies suggest that Type I thinking
styles were related to personality traits that are normally perceived to carry more
positive value, such as openness and conscientiousness, and that Type II styles
were correlated with neuroticism, a personality trait considered maladaptive in
most cultural contexts.
Recently, Palut (2008) studied a sample of Turkish female student teachers
and found that all five Type I thinking styles were negatively associated with
higher levels of externality, a personality trait often shown to be correlated with
less adaptive attributes such as school discipline problems and task postpone-
ment. Finally, Zhang’s (2009) study of Chinese university students showed that,
in general, Type I styles and the external style were negatively related to anxiety,
whereas the conservative style was positively related to anxiety.
The universality of styles is further supported by studies that have investigated
students’ preferred styles of teaching among their teachers and teachers’ pre-
ferred styles of learning among their students. To understand students’ prefer-
ences for their teachers’ teaching styles, Zhang (2003) constructed the Preferred
Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory (PTSTI). Given the existence of multi-
ple ethnic groups in China, understanding students’ preferences for teachers’
teaching styles could have significant implications for multicultural education in
China. In this regard, although none of the studies to be reviewed below involved
data from any ethnic minority group in China, findings suggest that regardless
of students’ own thinking styles and regardless of where the data were gathered,
students expressed a strong preference for their teachers to use Type I styles to
teach.
294 Li-fang Zhang
A series of four studies were conducted to identify the kind of teaching styles
that students prefer that their teachers use in educational practice. The first
study (Zhang 2004) involved 255 students from the University of Hong Kong; a
second study (Zhang, Huang, and Zhang 2005), 81 students from a large univer-
sity in the United States; a third study (Zhang 2006), 256 students from a large
teacher education university in Beijing; and a fourth study (Zhang 2008), 298
first-year students from a Catholic boys’ secondary school in Hong Kong. Across
these studies, several variables were taken into account, including gender, age,
students’ thinking styles, their self-rated abilities, and their family background.
Consistently, it was found that students indicated a much stronger preference for
their teachers to teach using Type I teaching styles than Type II teaching styles.
As noted earlier, how Tibetan students and other ethnic minority students
would like their teachers to teach is yet to be investigated. However, Zhang et
al. (2012) discovered from their interviews with Tibetan scholars and univer-
sity students that both groups of interviewees demonstrated a strong desire for a
more creative learning and teaching environment. Nevertheless, this set of quali-
tative data awaits the verification of quantitative data gathered directly from the
students by using the Preferred Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory.
To understand teachers’ preferences of students’ learning styles, Zhang (2007)
constructed the Preferred Thinking Styles in Learning Inventory (PTSLI). To
date, the inventory has been tested in two studies. In a first study, Zhang, Fu,
and Jiao (2008) administered the inventory to 175 faculty members at Tibet
University in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and to 144 faculty members at
Nanjing Normal University of mainland China. Although compared with the
academics in Nanjing, the Tibetan academics indicated a stronger preference
for their students to learn more conservatively, a stronger preference for Type
I learning styles was clearly demonstrated within both groups when data were
analyzed separately for each group. Bearing in mind the desire for a creative
teaching and learning environment found by Zhang and her colleagues (Zhang
2013) in their interviews, one should not be surprised by the finding that
Tibetan academics, like academics in Nanjing, indicated that they preferred their
students to learn in Type I learning styles. As part of her doctoral research, Tai
(doctoral dissertation in progress) administered the PTSLI to eighty-two Hong
Kong school teachers who were teaching various subjects. Results from this
sample were identical with those obtained among university academics in main-
land China.
A further question that one might have is whether or not people are positively
affected by their perception that other people use Type I styles. In Spain, Betoret
(2007) examined the relationship between perceptions of teaching styles and
their satisfaction with the course among 102 university students registered in
an instructional psychology course. Betoret concluded that, in general, students
who perceived their teacher to be using Type I teaching styles expressed higher
levels of satisfaction with the course.
Thus, viewing the above findings holistically, one should come to the conclu-
sion that Type I intellectual styles exhibit positive values. Not only do Type I
intellectual styles tend to be associated with positive human attributes, but also
students and teachers explicitly state that they would like to see each other using
Type I styles and that teachers’ use of such styles is related to students’ learning
satisfaction. These consistent preferences for Type I intellectual styles are rather
telling because the studies were conducted with students and teachers at both
secondary and tertiary institutions in different cultural settings and they were
anchored in a range of style constructs.
Conclusions and Implications for Multicultural Education
Founded on the empirical evidence provided above, the duality concerning the
nature of intellectual styles as it relates to culture is manifested: styles are both
culture-specific and universal. In practical terms, this would mean that different
ethnic groups in China could exhibit different intellectual styles. At the same
time, individuals within each ethnic group can show diverse intellectual styles.
Furthermore, such individual and group differences can be found in any country.
This duality determines the dual implications of the findings for multicul-
tural education in China and beyond. On the one hand, the culture-specificity
of intellectual styles requires that schools and universities provide an equal
opportunity for all students to shine through using their preferred intellectual
styles arising from their unique cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, the
universality of intellectual styles, particularly as it pertains to the adaptive values
of Type I styles, suggests that regardless of one’s cultural background, one must
296 Li-fang Zhang
have equal access to being challenged in order to develop intellectual styles that
are more creativity-generating. Moreover, it should be reiterated that although
the review of cross-cultural studies of intellectual styles in this chapter is con-
fined to cultural distinctions derived from countries and regions or ethnic groups
within countries, style differences along many other dimensions (e.g., gender,
age, educational level, and academic discipline) should also be regarded as cul-
tural differences.
With respect to providing an equal opportunity for all students to use their
preferred styles, accommodating the intellectual styles of students with diverse
cultural backgrounds makes the most sense. In order to achieve this objective,
the very first step for teachers to take is to comprehend the different learning
needs of different students. Ultimately, to suit the diverse learning style needs of
students with various cultural backgrounds, teachers need to teach in as many
different teaching styles as possible. The larger a teacher’s repertoire of teaching
styles, the more learning styles a teacher’s teaching will accommodate. By the
same token, assessing for diverse learning styles can also provide students with
an equal opportunity to best use their own learning styles in demonstrating their
strengths.
However, it should be emphasized that in promoting multicultural education
in China, a country that is characterized by both integration/unity (yiti 一體)
and diversity/pluralism (duoyuan 多元), a delicate balance needs to be struck
between accommodating diverse styles—at both individual and ethnic group
levels—and encouraging creative thinking. Yet, as can be imagined, achieving a
good balance between the two could be a daunting task. Accommodating for
diversity should not be rendered without its limits because some styles may have
to be developed for the long-term benefit of students from all groups. Meanwhile,
developing creative thinking should not be done at the expense of isolating those
students and groups who prefer other styles.
For an educational setting to be truly multicultural, it must accommodate the
diverse intellectual styles and at the same time, challenge for positive growth for
all students, irrespective of their cultural backgrounds. China is not an exception.
Nevertheless, it is apparent that mainland China’s unified curriculum system is
currently incapable of accommodating the diverse intellectual styles of different
ethnic groups (and arguably, those of individual students). As other chapters
in this volume have argued, it is hoped that the current push for local curricu-
lum flexibility (through the so-called xiangtu jiaocai 鄉土教材 movement) can
become a major impetus for counterbalancing the unified curriculum system
with the need to acknowledge the diverse intellectual styles of China’s ethnic
minority groups, as well as the wide individual differences within each of the
ethnic groups.
14
Han Chinese Reactions to Preferential
Minority Education in the PRC
James Leibold
A few weeks before the gruesome scenes of ethnic violence in Shaoguan and
Ürümqi, the Chinese public was captivated by another ethnic scandal. On June
22, 2009, state-run media broke the story of how thirty-one Han students in
Chongqing, including the top liberal arts student in the entire municipality,
altered their ethnic identity in order to receive twenty extra points on the nation-
wide college entrance exam (gaokao 高考) (Hou 2009). In the weeks that fol-
lowed, a media furor erupted, as the nation discussed the reasons for this act of
deception and their implications. “This incident,” leading educationalist Xiong
Bingqi (2009) declared, “reflects the urgency in reforming the current enroll-
ment system.” The sentiment had strong public support according to a China
Youth Daily (Zhongguo qingnian bao 中國青年報) poll of nearly three thousand
citizens across China, which found that only 11 percent thought the educa-
tion system was becoming more equitable. In contrast, 59 percent blamed the
gaokao’s “extra points” policy (jiafen zhengce 加分政策)—a longstanding policy
aimed at “encouraging” (guli 鼓勵) and “looking after” (zhaogu 照顧) certain
students by providing them with additional, unearned points on the exam—for
undermining educational equality (Xiao 2009).
Access to quality education is a complicated issue in the PRC, with a whole
raft of factors creating inequalities and public dissatisfaction. Here ethnicity, or
what is termed minzu (民族) in China, and ethnic tensions can act as an accel-
erant. As the Chinese Party-state attempts to balance unity and diversity in the
educational sector, the granting of extra points and preferential tertiary access
based on minzu identity has become a sensitive and emotive issue among certain
segments of the majority Han population.
300 James Leibold
Like previous examples of corruption associated with the bonus points

system, the Chongqing incident refocused the stoplight on the extensive regime
of affirmative action policies (minzu youhui zhengce 民族優惠政策) afforded to
non-Han minorities inside the PRC, what Barry Sautman (1999b: 173) referred
to as “one of the oldest and largest programs of state-sponsored preferential poli-
cies” in the world, and their relationship to educational equality. The scandal elic-
ited extensive media and online debate with views ranging from sympathy for
the students to outrage over a corrupt, inequitable system. For a small group of
Han nationalists, the incident was interpreted as yet another example of the con-
tinued marginalization and discrimination of the Han majority within Chinese
society, and they responded with sharply worded vitriol and hate-speech con-
demning the Party-state and those minorities and Han traitors (Hanjian 漢奸)
who seek to undermine the natural racial order.
If the system of extra points for ethnic minorities continues, one blogger
wrote on the popular Han nationalist website Hanwang (漢網, www.hanminzu.
com), “the entire country will turn minority in a single turn of the head” (Minzu
yingxiong 2009). Another contributor to Hanwang asserted: “Doesn’t the fact
that the minorities are given extra points make it clear to everyone that they
possess inferior intelligence?” (ibid.). “Let them freely test for entry into ethnic
universities,” another wrote, “but don’t allow them to wreak the entire fair and
open examination system where the superior win and the inferior are elimi-
nated” (ibid.). These opinions, while extreme and racist in their language, reflect
wider Han dissatisfaction with the Party-state’s current ethnic policies, especially
minority preferential treatment (Leibold 2013).
This chapter probes recent public discourse in China on preferential minor-
ity educational policies in order to demonstrate the level of discontent they are
generating among significant segments of Chinese society. In the growing body
of literature on the policies and practices of minority education in China, these
concerns are rarely discussed or taken seriously.1 Han perceptions of minority
education must be considered alongside studies which explore the effectiveness
of these polices in promoting social inclusiveness, mobility and belonging, as the
support of the ethnic majority community, especially one as large as the Han, is
crucial to the success of any genuine form of cultural and ethnic pluralism.
Han Chinese Reactions to Preferential Minority Education in the PRC 301
Over a decade ago, Barry Sautman (1999b: 194) contended that public
resentment against minority educational preferences “is not strong enough to
have been publicly manifested by any social group.”2 Yet, the rapid acceleration
of market reforms and the spread of new communication technologies have
altered this situation. By contrasting official and scholarly narratives with non-
elite, online chatter about the extra point policy, I seek to demonstrate how the
Internet is opening up new platforms for public discussion and comment on
highly sensitive and once carefully controlled topics like ethnic relations,3 and
the resulting disconnect between Han public sentiment and the Party-state’s
minority education policies. Although the Han nationalists discussed in this
chapter remain a small yet vocal community (Leibold 2010a), the Internet
empowers them to articulate, channel, and even resonate wider public opinion,
helping to shape ready-set answers and easy scapegoats for complex social issues
like educational and ethnic equality. Furthermore, the failure of the Party-state
to effectively confront majority resentment, or take the concerns of marginalized
Han voices seriously, has important implications for social stability and national
integration in the PRC.
The Chongqing Incident
Following a series of official investigations, the Ministry of Education announced

on July 18, 2009, that the thirty-one students that falsified their ethnic identities
would be denied entrance to university regardless of their scores. The Ministry
referred to a joint directive issued by itself, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission
(SEAC), and the Public Security Bureau in April 2009 which clearly stated
that anyone found falsifying their identity would be disqualified from the exam
or university admittance, and could even face expulsion if they were already
enrolled (Hualong 2009).
Of the thirty-one students, the case of 17-year-old He Chuanyang attracted
the most attention. In 2006, the boy’s father He Yeda, head of the Wushan
County admission office, draw on a favor from the county’s ethnic and religious
affairs bureau chief to have his son’s identity switched from Han to Tujiazu (土
家族), one of China’s fifty-five officially recognized minority groups. Despite
the fact that He was already enrolled at Chongqing’s best senior high school, his
302 James Leibold
parents thought he might benefit from the extra twenty points available to ethnic
minorities on the gaokao in Chongqing. Yet, their concerns were ultimately
unwarranted, as He Chuanyang received the highest score in the entire munici-
pality’s liberal arts exam without the extra points. While his 659 out of 750 pos-
sible marks qualified him for entry into Peking University and other elite tertiary
institutions in China, he was refused admission following the revelation of his
illegal identity swap. The boy’s parents were also sacked from their government
positions. He Chuanyang, on the other hand, pleaded ignorance, arguing that he
was unsure of his real ethnic identity as his grandparents always lived simply like
members of the Tujia minority (Xinhua 2009a).
The media and public immediately rallied behind He Chuanyang, viewing
him as an innocent pawn trapped in a confusing, unjust, and exploitative exam
system in urgent need of reform. In a widely circulated opinion piece in the influ-
ential China Youth Daily, Tian Guolei (2009) offered a scathing critique of the
extra point system. Like others he suggested that the nature and scope of the
extra point system was in “a state of disorder,” with urgent need for greater trans-
parency on how the system operates and the different categories of extra points.
In another widely circulated opinion piece (Pan 2009), it was claimed that there
were up to two hundred different categories under which students can obtain
extra points, including points, in some instances, for those whose parents pay
their taxes on time or purchase a quarter of a million yuan home (1up 2009; Tian
2009). An online QQ poll of over 20,000 netizens revealed extensive sympathy
for He Chuanyang, with over 20 percent bitterly opposed to any restrictions on
his university admittance and agreeing that the extra point system was respon-
sible for this tragedy, while most expressed support or sympathy for his plight
(Tencent 2009).
Others, writing outside the mainstream media, focused more directly on
the politically sensitive issue of identity swapping and on the equity of provid-
ing minority students with extra points. In early July, the popular blogger Sima
Pingbang (2009) argued that the real guilty party in the Chongqing incident
was China’s preferential treatment policies for its ethnic minorities. Urging his
readers to look beyond the surface level of corruption, he questioned why the
state provides minorities with preferential treatment if all citizens of the PRC are
equal before the law. Doesn’t the system create new inequalities? Or as another
blogger on the Tianya (天涯) BBS wrote: “The real culprit here is the way the
policy of minority extra points discriminates against the Han. The Constitution
stipulates that all minzu are equal. He Chuanyang should report a violation of
the Constitution to the Ministry of Education” (Luo 2009). Another blogger,
writing in English on the Fool’s Mountain blog, compared the preferential treat-
ment policies to the pacifying of children with candy: “One day, kids will grow
up and blame their parents for rotting their teeth” (berlinf 2009).
Sima Pingbang (2009) suggested in his post that the lack of exposure on these
unjust preferential treatment policies explains why foreigners misinterpreted
the Ürümqi tragedy. It is not a case of Han discrimination against the Uyghurs,
but rather the government’s continual appeasement of the minorities that has
emboldened them and sparked the violence in Xinjiang. Instead of reporting on
the ways the Han are being “taken advantage of ” (bei qifu 被欺負), the Western
media distorts the picture and sympathizes with the Uyghurs. The Chongqing
incident and the riot in Ürümqi, prominent liberal intellectual Liu Junning
(2009) wrote on the website of the BBC’s Chinese language service, reflect a
wider politic of “ethnic division” (minzu huafen 民族劃分), one that is rooted
in the Soviet-style ethnic policies blindly adopted by the CPC in 1949 which
creates ethnic divisions and resentment that are fundamentally alien to Chinese
tradition.
Expressing a similar sentiment, a contributor to Tianya wrote in relation to
the Chongqing incident:
It [the extra point system] was originally aimed at strengthening minzu
fusion in the interest of the country and its peaceful and stable develop-
ment, but now it has become a policy of ethnic discrimination. I strongly
support the abolishment of the minzu category, and afterwards we should
only use Zhonghua minzu when filling out [official] forms (Luo 2009).
In Han nationalist chat-rooms, the Chongqing incident was symptomatic of a

different kind of social rot. Writing under the pen name Blue Lotus (Qinglianzi
2009), an anonymous blogger argued that He Chuanyang not only lied, but
also betrayed his own race and thus could be labeled a Han traitor. But for this
netizen, he also deserved sympathy, for it is the fundamentally perverse and
unjust system of minority preferential educational policies that compels kids like
him into this desperate situation. The extra point system not only violates the
304 James Leibold
Constitution and its stipulation that all citizens and ethnic groups are equal, but
also its protection against any form of minzu-based discrimination or oppression:
“This favorable treatment of minority IQ violates the rights of the Han people to
receive an education!”
Amidst this storm of public debate and criticism, the Deputy Chair of the
SEAC Wu Shimin defended the extra point system at a press conference on July
21, 2009. He admitted that while some people might question the policy’s fair-
ness for Han students, it was based on the specific conditions of China. Due to
historical and geographic reasons, the ethnic minority regions continue to lag
behind other parts of China in their development, and the extra point policy
seeks to level the playing field for these disadvantaged minorities. The system
varies across the country, with minority students in places like Xinjiang and
Tibet receiving the most points, while minorities in other places might receive
only four or five extra points. “This is in the best interest of the entire country,” he
asserted, emphasizing that minority students are still underrepresented at uni-
versities in China (Zhongguo xinwen wang 2009). Yet, not all cadres were con-
vinced by the merits of the system. Respected lawyer and Chongqing People’s
Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member Li Yuefeng called for a
public hearing on the extra point policy (Chongqing 2010), while fellow CPPCC
member Wang Yueting suggested, among other reforms, that only minority stu-
dents living in outlaying frontier regions should be given extra points on the
gaokao (ibid.).
The Policy and Its Discontents
The provision of preferential minority education is one of the long-standing cor-

nerstones of the Chinese Party-state’s handling of the so-called national/ethnic
question (minzu wenti 民族問題) (Liu and Wang 2009; Ma 2012; Zhou 1999).
As far back as the Jiangxi Soviet (1931–34), the CPC sought to recruit and cul-
tivate minority elite in order to both increase its legitimacy among non-Han
groups and to assist with its quest to form a national government. The CPC not
only promised the minorities “equal rights” (pingdeng quanli 平等權利) but
also “to energetically assist those small and weak or backward ethnic groups to
develop their own national cultures and languages” (Zhonghua suwei’ai 1930:
123). Seeking to implement educational equality, the Party-state first created

special cadre training classes for minorities in 1939, and then established a
separate Nationalities Institute (Minzu xueyuan 民族學院) in Yan’an in 1941.
Following the establishment of the PRC in 1949, these policies were institution-
alized and expanded, with the establishment of ten minority institutes of higher
education, including the Central Minzu University (Zhongyang minzu daxue
中央民族大學) in Beijing. Today, this separate system for “ethnic education”
(minzu jiaoyu 民族教育) provides financial aid, remedial classes, ethnic quotas,
and, at times, a specially tailored curriculum aimed at encouraging minority stu-
dents to enroll in not only specialist ethnic universities, where they can study in
their own ethnic languages, but also mainstream, Chinese language universities
(Wen 2007; Zhou 1996).
Since the 1950s, preferential admission has been one of the key strategies
for boasting minority participation in higher education, with the first regulation
concerning the recruitment of minority students stating: “Although their exam
results are slightly lacking, their enrollment should be handled leniently” (cited
in Teng and Ma 2005: 10). In 1962, the Ministry of Education and the CPC
Central Committee outlined a series of concrete measures for “looking after”
(zhaogu 照顧) minority tertiary students: first, those with the same exam results
as Han students should be given priority admission (youxian luqu 優先錄取);
and second, those from minority autonomous regions should be provided an
even higher level of priority, and so long as they meet the Ministry of Education’s
minimum score requirement, they should be provided enrollment (ibid.: 11).
After the nation-wide tertiary entrance exam (gaokao 高考) was re-estab-
lished in 1977, preferential admission was reinstated and expanded, with the
Ministry of Education stipulating that: “When appropriate, the minimum
passing grade and recruitment scores should be relaxed for minority students in
the frontier region,” while also instituting “a policy of extra enrollment points”
(jiafen luqu zhengce 加分錄取政策) for disadvantaged groups like minorities
students and those students who excel in certain areas (ibid.: 11; K. Zhang 2009:
53). The legal basis of minority preferences was established in the 1984 Law on
Regional Ethnic Autonomy, which states that: “In enrollment, institutions of
higher education and secondary technical schools shall appropriately set lower
standards and requirements for the admission of students from minority nation-
alities” (cited in Sautman 1999b: 176).
306 James Leibold
Over the last decade there have been several prominent corruption scandals
associated with the extra point system for ethnic minorities, with the Chongqing
incident being only one of the more recent. These problems have attracted
intense academic scrutiny and debate on the merits of the system, and its rela-
tionship to both the original intent of the policy and broader notions of educa-
tional equality. In terms of minority preferential enrollment, one can identify at
least four distinct positions adopted by Chinese academics and scholar-officials:
(1) those who generally support the policy but call for its “perfection” (wanshan
完善); (2) those who believe the policy discriminates against both the Han and
the minorities; and (3) those who think the current policy fails to take into con-
sideration social, regional and interethnic variations.
Most academics admit that the system of preferential minority education has
generated widespread debate and even opposition among the general public. But
for a good proportion of scholars, this anxiety is fueled by misinformation, cor-
ruption, and a general lack of understanding about the important intent behind
the policy. Those who defend the policy are fond of citing Marx and argue that a
socialist society like China seeks not only legal or formal equality but also actual
equality within society. Preferential minority education squarely recognizes the
current state of inequality that exists in the quality of education in the minor-
ity regions and the low cultural “quality” (suzhi 素質) of minority students,
and the provision of extra points for minority students on the gaokao aims “to
accelerate the development of economic and cultural enterprises in the minority
regions, raise the quality of the minority population, and benefit the great cause
of Chinese national revival” (Qin and Wei 2007: 51).4
Others, such as Ao Junmei (2006) of Beijing Normal University, draw on John
Rawls’ idea of “compensatory justice” to defend minority preferences, arguing
that it is acceptable to violate “formal equality” in the pursuit of “actual equal-
ity” if one is seeking to compensate for past injustice and inequalities. While
Professor Ao admits that market reforms have tended to emphasis the impor-
tance of individual equality over group equality, individual freedoms are cultur-
ally determined, according to Rawls, and cannot be separated from the groups
that constitute them, and thus it follows that the reduction of group inequalities
will naturally benefit individual equality.
Supporters of the policy echo Party officials in citing statistics that they claim
demonstrate the effectiveness of minority preferential education in promot-
ing genuine equality of educational opportunity. According to another Beijing
Normal University researcher, Lu Yongping (2007), the number of minority
students in higher education has increased over 30 percent per annum, from a
mere 5,500 students in 1953 to 53,700 in 1982. With the expansion of prefer-
ences during the Reform Period, the number of minority students enrolled at
normal universities reached 317,300 in 2000 and 807,300 in 2004. By 2007,
there were 1.21 million minority tertiary students, representing 6.04 percent of
the total population (X. Ma 2009: 11). Lu Yongping admits that the policy has
come at a cost to some group’s interests, but there is no such thing as “perfect
equality,” rather the principle of impartially is a plastic one (fanxing de gainian 範
性的概念) and the “government must seek to satisfy the needs and aspirations
of the main body of society,” which meaning adopting a policy of “short term dif-
ference to bring about the ultimate elimination of differences” (Luo 2007: 11).
Declaring tertiary minority preferences “morally justifiable and practically effec-
tive,” the former Inspector-General of SEAC Wang Tiezhi (2009: 80) declared
that the policy was the most effective method for “achiev[ing] educational equal-
ity for all ethnic groups, and facilitat[ing] ethnic cohesion in China.”
In sharp contrast, other Chinese scholars argue that minority preferences
violate both Article 33.2 of the PRC Constitution and Article 9.2 of the Education
Law of the PRC, which provides all PRC citizens with legal equality and equal
educational opportunity regardless of their ethnicity or race (K. Zhang 2009:
58). Many Han students, particularly those living in less developed frontier and
rural regions, view minority preferences as a form of “reverse discrimination”
(fanxiang qishi 反向歧視) that treats them unfairly and harms their fundamen-
tal interests (Teng and Ma 2005: 12). At the same time, the policy also pastes the
tag of “insufficient ability” on minority students and influences both how they
view their own position in society and how others perceive them (Ao 2006: 71).
This has led to a degree of ambiguity about the policy among some minority
elites. On the one hand, they recognize the need for remedial assistance due to
the gap between their educational opportunities and that of their Han counter-
parts; but at the same time, some view the policy as a form of prejudice and bias
308 James Leibold
against the minorities and minority ability, and believe that minority students
should compete with Han students on an equal footing (Xiang 2009: 54).
Yet, the vast majority of the policy’s academic critics stress that current imple-
mentation no longer accords with the original intent of the policy, and the use
of ethnic identity (minzu) as the sole criteria for educational preferences creates
a blunt and ineffective tool for increasing educational equality. One of the pol-
icy’s most vocal critics has been Professor Teng Xing, the Founding Director
of the Research Institute for Ethnic Minority Education at the Central Minzu
University in Beijing (Zhongyang minzu daxue minzu jiaoyu yanjiusuo 中央民
族大學民族教育研究所) and editor of its flagship journal Research on Ethnic
Minority Education (Minzu jiaoyu yanjiu 民族教育研究). A graduate of Beijing
Normal University, Teng Xing received a US government Fulbright scholarship
to study under leading educationalist John Ogbu at the University of California,
Berkeley. Once back in China, Teng started arguing that current policies are no
longer effective in promoting social equality and multicultural education, and
instead were in urgent need of reform ( Jiang 2002).
In an influential and widely cited 2005 article coauthored with his PhD
student Ma Xiaoyi and published in Ethnonational Studies (Minzu yanjiu 民族研
究), Teng Xing argues that like affirmative action in the United States, minority
preferential treatment in China has become a hot-button issue. Since the policy
was first implemented, Chinese society has become increasingly diverse, with
the post-Mao market reforms and the commercialization of education creat-
ing new regional, ethnic, and intra-ethnic inequalities. “Due to the above con-
ditions,” Teng and Ma write, “at this stage, we must take a fresh look at those
preferential policies that use ethnicity as their sole criterion, and do our best to
match them to the needs of social development” (Teng and Ma 2005: 13).5 They
argue that if there is no obvious difference between groups, then they should be
treated equally—here the key principle is “treating difference differently” (chabie
duidai 差別對待). By seeking an elusive form of “absolute equality,” they argue,
China’s current policy is far too narrowly focused on promoting equal access to
higher education without sufficient emphasis on the equality of the educational
processes and outcomes. While they stop short of calling for the abolition of the
extra point system for minority students, they contend that the system needs to
be reformed in order to take into account obvious differences in geography, class,
and income levels, and as a “transitory policy” (zanshixing zhengce 暫時性政

策) there will come a day when the policy has outlived its uses. In the meantime,
however, Han students living in impoverished border regions should also receive
extra points while minority students living in developed regions like Guangdong
should not receive any special treatment (ibid.: 17–18).
Professor Yan Wenjun (2008: 36), a Han expert on minority higher educa-
tion at Northwest Normal University in Lanzhou, argues that market reforms
have created a “new disequilibrium” (xin de bu pingheng 新的不平衡) in the
development of minority education, with some minority regions and groups
(such as the Mongols, Hui, and Manchus) now surpassing the national average
for higher education admissions while others (such as the Yugur) are actually
falling further and further behind.6 In Yan’s opinion, “a single unified preferential
treatment policy cannot possibly reflect the diversity and special circumstances
of minority students,” and thus the system needs to be reformed to take into con-
sideration these new imbalances (ibid.). Like Teng and Ma, Yan Wenjun calls
for the introduction of more local content on the gaokao and a departure from
a single, uniform exam. Others, such as Professor Wang Kequn (2006), a senior
Marxist researcher at the Party School in Jinan, Shandong, goes a step further
and calls for the outright abolishment of the system. In a widely discussed and
circulated article published in the influential Guangming Daily (Guangming ribao
光明日報) in December 2006, Wang argued that the extra point system is
inherently unfair, and has become “a hotbed of corruption.” Due to the elasticity
and proliferation of extra point categories, it has become easier to fabricate one’s
identity in order to obtain these extra points. In Wang’s opinion, “only when we
abolish this hotbed will this sort of corruption end.”
The Chongqing incident sparked yet another round of academic debate on
the issue. In a 2009 article in Examination Research (Kaoshi yanjiu 考試研究),
Zhang Keran asserts that abuses of the system are damaging the impartiality
of the entire gaokao system. “The aims of our country’s ‘extra points’ policy are
good,” he writes, “but the issue of ‘who are the targets of these extra points,’ ‘the
scope of these extra points,’ and the standardization of this policy all need more
careful consideration” (K. Zhang 2009: 59). In the author’s opinion, the scope
of these points should be limited to only minority students and the families of
national martyrs and soldiers, and more effective regulation and oversight are
310 James Leibold
needed to eliminate corruption. Xiamen university researcher Xiang Yawen

(2009: 55) offers four recommendations for improving the system: first, the
Party-state needs to break with its tradition of using ethnicity as the sole standard
of implementation in order to reflect the plurality and complexity of educational
opportunities in China; second, it needs to adopt a policy of “broad admittance,
strict exit” (kuan jin yan chu 寬進嚴出) to ensure that minority tertiary stu-
dents graduate with the appropriate skills and suzhi to fully benefit from these
opportunities in the marketplace; third, it needs to draft a special legal statute
regarding minority higher education to provide a clear legal basis and guaran-
tee for the policy; and finally, it must continue to uphold the unitary yet flexible
implementation of the policy in order to ensure suitability to local conditions
and requirements.
The Han Nationalist Backlash
With over half a billion users in China, the Internet has become a caldron of
contestation and a newfound source of raw, bottom-up public opinion. Despite
the continued efforts of the Party-state to both regulate and control online dis-
course, the dynamic nature of online activism has greatly expanded the scope
of public discussion in China. The freewheeling and largely anonymous nature
of online discourse encourages ordinary citizens to discuss once taboo topics,
such as issues related to ethnic and national identity. While there remains strong
support for the Party-state and its policies on the Internet, there is also a growing
chorus of discontent in certain quarters: both progressive and regressive in
nature (Leibold 2011; G. Yang 2009).
One area where this frustration has been most vocal is among the growing
number of Han nationalists that now frequent parts of the Sinophone Internet.
As I have described elsewhere (Leibold 2010a), the Hanist community is a
broad “church” with a range of diverse investments in the once “empty” Han cat-
egory. But at its core, supporters’ call for the revival of Han culture and identity
rests on an assumption of racial supremacism, and a belief that the natural racial
order has been subverted by the Party-state’s preferential minority policies. On
Hanist websites there is frequent reference to the decline of Han power, render-
ing this once mighty people second, or even fourth, class citizens, and claims
that government policies are fostering a new “privileged” or “aristocratic” class

among the minorities. Here the gaokao is labeled “another form of discrimina-
tion” (lingwai yizhong qishi 另外一種歧視), “naked racial discrimination” (chi-
luoluo de zhongzu qishi 赤裸裸的種族歧視), a system that creates “new ethnic
inequalities” (xin de minzu jian bu pingdeng 新的民族間不平等), or “disguised
discrimination” (bianxiang qishi 變相歧視).
When discussing preferential minority education policies, Han cybernation-
alists raise many of the same concerns that appear in the academic discourse
discussed above, and propose many of the same suggestions for reform. Yet, the
tenor and import of the discussion is markedly different: with emotive slogan-
eering and exclamation marks replacing rational analysis and footnotes. In what
follows, I seek to demonstrate how Hanist discourse on educational preferences
flattens and at times distorts the complexities of this policy debate and seeks to
provide those that inhabit the Chinese Internet with ready-made solutions to at
least some of the problems that have arisen in a rapidly changing Chinese society.
In the process, Hanist vitriol taps into, and seeks to whip-up, wider community
sentiment about the perceived “backwardness” (luohou 落後) and “low quality”
(di suzhi 低素質) nature of minority cultures and peoples, suggesting that the
Party-state’s “civilizing mission” is now ineffective and requires urgent repair
(Harrell 1995).
The level of sophistication is one of the more surprising aspects of Hanist
discourse on this topic. Like academic and media coverage, Han nationalists
highlight the problematic nature of “absolute equality” and make frequent ref-
erence to how minority affirmative action violates the provision for ethnically
blind equality in the PRC Constitution. Yet, as one Hanwang blogger pointed
out (reply to Longyi 2007), this sort of absolute equality has always been an ideal
rather than a reality. Despite the ruminations of Montesquieu and other Western
philosophers about equality and justice, these notions have always been relative.
Due to China’s political environment, perfect equality is impossible and while
it is also lacking in the West, the more relaxed social and political atmosphere
protects the right of citizens to free speech. This blogger goes on to argue that
minority preferences are not only unjustified based on need, but also a method
of appeasement, helping to pacify the minorities in order to prevent them from
revolting or unsettling public order. The problem of Han students switching their
312 James Leibold
ethnic identities to receive extra points on the gaokao, according to this blogger
at least, is one of corruption among the privileged classes.
Like their academic critics, the Han cybernationalists attack the extra-point
policy for “creating new ethnic inequalities” while failing to take into consid-
eration inter- and intraethnic differences, with many of them suggesting either
a regional or income based alternative that would not disadvantage the Han
majority. For example, an article reposted on Hanwang in late 2007 under the
net-name Huaxia Revival (Huaxia fuxing 華夏復興), offered three solutions:
“First revise the policy so that all those in the West are looked after while those in
the coastal cities are treated equally; second, eliminate the minzu category on all
ID cards; and, third, strengthen the attack on separatist forces” (Huaxia fuxing
2007). Another Hanwang blogger argued in favor of regional-based affirmative
action policies, because minzu-based inequalities are “in the final analysis, the
result of a disequilibrium in regional development” (Dahan jiangjun 2007).
Those that are in most need of government assistance live in the western regions
of Tibet, Xinjiang, Ningxia, and other areas, and here the Han and minorities are
equally disadvantaged and in need of direct intervention to boost educational
levels. In order to rebalance China’s economic development and speed up the
process of minzu fusion, this netizen suggests the creation of new incentives for
regional migration. Those Han families who are willing to permanently settle in
the west should receive the same treatment as the minorities, such as no limits on
the number of births, an extra twenty to thirty points on the gaokao and free uni-
versity education, while those minorities who agree to migrate to the east should
retain their preferences, at least for the time being, while long-term minority
residents in the east should be treated the same as their Han compatriots. Others
suggest that the government “should use income levels as the sole criterion, and
carry out preferential treatment for the destitute; preferences based solely on
ethnic identity are suicidal self-harm” (reply to Dahan jiangjun 2007).
Yet, unlike the discourse of academic critics of the current policy, Hanist
writing is largely free from political and practical concerns, speaking more
freely and forcefully in its criticism of minority preferences. In an online essay,
a blogger (q174022484 2007) who identified himself as a 23-year-old from
Shenyang wrote:
I can understand the government providing preferential treatment for those

living in distant places, providing extra benefits on the gaokao and in the
economy. But they shouldn’t adopt a policy of ‘all but the Han’ in terms of
these benefits! There are those who live in certain regions, where the Han
and minorities students receive the same sort of education, but only the
minorities receive special treatment on the gaokao. Is this not going to lead
to the creation of a new ‘aristocracy’? Not long ago, I saw a report on the
web that the Koreans and Manchus were fighting over who should receive
the title of “highest level of education”! Think about it. Why should those
[minority] students with the highest levels of education receive preferential
treatment on the gaokao? And then they also receive special treatment in
family planning. Is this really a case of ‘wiping out the bullies and helping
the down-trodden’?!
Others called for a Han boycott of the gaokao until these inequalities are removed
(reply to Longyi 2007).
Han nationalists have also used the Internet to gather and dissemination infor-
mation that is either overlooked or not widely reported in the mainstream media.
For example, a netizen writing under the alias Phper+Javaer (2009a; 2009b) has
been publicizing the extent of the special treatment minority students receive
on the gaokao, pointing out that Tibetans received up to 160 extra points on the
2009 gaokao, while Uyghur students taking the exam in Chinese (minkaohan 民
考漢) received up to 85 extra points when compared to their Han counterparts
in Xinjiang. To substantiate these claims, he provides links to government and
commercial websites where this information was originally published. Yet, for
the Hanists, the import of these statistics and the larger system that underpins
them are clear: the “dirty people” (zangren 髒人, viz. Tibetans) and “rag-heads”
(weizi 維子, viz. Uyghurs), in Phper+Javaer’s words, are “really receiving too
much fucking special treatment, meaning that they can get into university with
less points than their Han classmates” (ibid.).
Unlike the reasoned, dispassionate, and careful analysis of this complex
issue in mainstream newspapers and academic journals, online discourse like
the above is highly emotive and personal in nature, punctuated with a sense of
urgency aimed at stirring people into action, and taps into the underlining racism
within Chinese society ( Jacques 2009: 233–71). Hanist websites are filled with
personal stories about how the system of minority extra points is being rotted to
314 James Leibold
the detriment of the Han majority. Take, for example, the following text written
by a netizen under the name “Dragon’s Descendent” (Longyi 龍裔):
I remember the year I took the exam, school authorities suggested that stu-
dents seek out minority relatives and change their household registration in
order to get those 20 precious extra points. As a result, prior to the exam,
almost 1/3 of my Han classmates suddenly metamorphosed into Manchus,
Hui or other groups, while the remaining rake through their family genealo-
gies but failed to locate any alien relatives . . . (Longyi 2007).
Another online essayist (q174022484 2007) tells a story about how he learned
that one of his friends had switched his son’s household registration to Guizhou
in order to take full advantage of his Shuizu (水族) status on the gaokao. He
recounts how he sat in silence, dumbfounded and disconsolate and thought
to himself: “Is it possible that our Han identity has become a stumbling block
which is hindering us from seeking our own interest?!” He goes on to talk about
a number of other incidents where local government officials and individuals,
even entire villages, falsify their ethnic identity to take advantage of the govern-
ment’s preferential treatment policies. Here unsubstantiated rumors fly, such as
another posting on Hanwang (which has since been “voluntarily deleted”) where
the author claimed that minorities back in his hometown were not only receiv-
ing completely free education but also monthly stipend of 50 RMB regardless of
their wealth. In order to cash-in on these benefits, an entire village in the Xiqin
region of Shanxi declared to authorities that they were changing their identity to
Zhuang due to the fact that their ancestors migrated from Guangdong some two
hundred years before, and even the descendants of Confucian disciples in Yanhui
County had changed their identity to Miao (Bafan xuanfu shi 2006).7
This sort of personal introspection often leads to exaggeration and rumors that
can easily lead to distortion and hate-speech. For example, Dragon’s Descendent
(Longyi 2008) re-posted a short 2006 news story from the official Xinhua News
Agency entitled “The Ethnic Minorities in Jiangsu Receive One Further Year of
Education than the Han” on the Hanwang website.8 The original article reported
on the rapid increase in the minority population in Jiangsu since liberation and
the vast improvements in minority education so that they now receive an average
of 9.09 years of education, which is one more year than their Han counterparts
in the province. Following this reposting, Hanwang members flew into a rage:
How can this silliness be? The Han people are being stripped of their edu-
cational rights! Based on IQ and industriousness, the Han people should
receive a greater share of education than the minorities!
The minorities are innately inferior to us. This rubbish is the result of all
these years of looking after them.
I remember very few minorities back in my old hometown! You would
occasionally come across a few pig-eating Hui! But now rag-heads and
steppe people are everywhere on the streets. We must revive our race and
fight for our state’s strength and prosperity.
This is a policy of Han annihilation. Instead, the Han people should seek
their own independence. Otherwise our population will continue to
dwindle, and one day the entire province will become minority. When this
tragic time comes, the Han will be oppressed by the minorities.
Like the Chongqing incident, Hanist vitriol tends to be reactive rather than
proactive—dependent on scandalous incidents that get reported in the main-
stream media to fuel online discussion and recruit new members. Following
the Chongqing incident, and the subsequent ethnic violence in Shaoguan and
Ürümqi, online chatter on Hanwang and other Hanist websites swelled dra-
matically. Seeking to demonstrate that the case of He Chuanyang and other
Chongqing students were not unique, a widely circulated post, entitled “One
after another, they change their race” rehashed a 2008 story of ethnic-based cor-
ruption in Feng County in Shaanxi Province (Hanwu tianxia 2009). Following
a decline in the local economy, construction company officials encouraged the
Feng County government to construct a “Qiang ethnic native village” (Qiangzu
guli 羌族故里) to open up new sources of revenue while nominally boasting
local tourism. Towards this end, the county government issued a formal notice
urging the “revival” of Qiang culture in the county, and offering a 150 RMB
monthly subsidy to family members who were willing to alter their minzu iden-
tity. It was also pointed out that those who altered their identity would be eligible
for educational and family planning preferences.
While this story was originally reported in the mainstream media (Xinjing bao
2008; Tu 2009), its retelling online sought to add fuel to the furor about declin-
ing Han privileges. Without laying blame on He Chuanyang or others caught up
in this inherently unfair system of government inducements, the author seeks to
demonstrate how the Han have become “fourth class citizens” (sideng gongmin
316 James Leibold
四等公民) in their own country: “Is it possible that the Han have become an
inferior minzu within the family of the Zhonghua nation?” (Hanwu tianxia
2009). Seeking to rouse his fellow compatriots into action, the author ends with
an emotive reference to the consequences of these corrupt and unjust policies:
“Han! Han! Han! The 7.5 incident [the Ürümqi riot] has proven that we have no
nationalism. What? Has the army become the only ones that can permanently
safeguard public order? Do we no longer have the type of strength needed to
resist the enemy? We must struggle” (ibid.). With replies like “all those Han who
alter their identity in search of a tiny bit of profit are Han traitors,” and “due to
these minzu-based preferential treatment policies, the Han people are less and
less willing to be Han,” the original poster seemed to cultivate the desired effect
on his readers.
In its critiques of government policy, the official media and academic critics
are careful to tip-toe around the limits of acceptable discourse, with most calling
for only the “perfecting” of current policy while avoiding any direct criticism of
the Party-state. On the web, however, the Han cybernationalists leave little doubt
that they hold the Party-state directly responsible for the decline of Han power
and privilege. In reply to a posting on new minority educational preferences,
a Hanwang blogger wrote in 2006: “I have never seen such a worthless, self-
abusing political party! All those anti-Han people who disseminate false-China
hearsay about ‘fusion theory’, ‘civil war theory’, and ‘blood transfusion theory’
are insultingly trampling on those who do not discriminate based on sex or age
and treat everyone equally as human beings” (reply to Banfan xuanfu shi 2006).
Most Hanist believe that the Party-state is failing to look after the interests of the
“core minzu” (zhuti minzu 主體民族), which accords with the best interest of
the state and nation: “There is no disputing the fact that the Han are the over-
whelming majority of the state, and thus anything that harms the interest of the
Han will harm the interest of China!” (q174022484 2007). Or as Phper+Javaer
(2009c) put it: “We oppose the CPC, not the Han race. The CPC is not treat-
ing the Han race fairly.” In 2006, another blogger on Hanwang wrote: “if minzu
contradictions intensify, these ill-fated policies will be the cause . . . I think that
history will prove that the lugging of this stone around [our necks] will eventu-
ally smash the toes of the government and the Party” (reply to Banfa xuanfu shi
2006).
Conclusion
In the PRC’s idealized form of multiculturalism, there exists a significant gap

between rhetoric and reality. In terms of ethnic minority education, the rich
diversity of Chinese society is not fully replicated or taught in the educational
system, which remains dominated by the Han language, values, and cultural
capital (Postiglione 1999a; Gladney 1999; Wang and Zhou 2003). Yi Lin argues
that public discourse in China “has not shown respect for diversity in spite of
the fact that at the level of legal formalities it guarantees freedom of, for instance,
religious belief,” and that state policy on education “exercises exclusion of minor-
ity cultures” in comparison to the Han majority (Yi 2005b: 2, 22; see also Yi
2008). While certainly valid on one plane, this line of criticism misses the exten-
sive series of affirmative action policies that aim to create, in theory at least, the
type of social environment in which non-Han students can be both ethnic and
Chinese, different yet successful.
Rather than an insufficient respect for diversity, I would contend, it is the
rigid, tokenistic, and increasingly commodified nature of China’s multicultural
masquerade that not only reifies ethnic subjectivities but also engenders resent-
ments among majority and minority alike. The PRC’s museum-style “multi-
minzu-ism” not only pastes over clashing values and cultural systems, but also
constructs institutional barriers to genuine cultural and ethnic pluralism. As
reflected in education, the current system propels minority communities in the
direction of a dual form of alienation: forcing them to choose between ethnic
segregation via the minkaomin (民考民) pathway or impact integration via the
minkaohan (民考漢) pathway (Postiglione, Zhu and Ben 2004), rather than
creating natural and meaningful opportunities for social interaction and mutual
understanding. At the same time, minority preferences engender resentment
among the Han majority, encouraging corruption or, even worse, violence, while
hindering empathy and a broader acceptance of the value of ethnocultural diver-
sity in society. Like elsewhere in the world, ethnic apartheid and forced assimila-
tion are blunt and ultimately ineffective tools of civic governance, and I would
suggest that they were (among other factors) key accelerants to the violence that
erupted in Lhasa, Shaoguan, and Ürümqi in 2008–09.
318 James Leibold
China’s Internet Revolution has intensified these contradictions. By shifting

knowledge construction and public discussion online, Chinese society has frac-
tured into a series of competing, and often isolated, interest groups. Frustrated by
government policies that they believe are detrimental to the interests of the vast
majority of Chinese citizens, Han nationalists are using online activism and hate-
speech to mobilize and embolden public concern. The government has sought
to use the Internet to “educate” disgruntled Han citizens, yet its often patron-
izing and dismissive language only seeks to galvanize public discontent. Take
for example, a recent online exchange between netizens and Mao Gongning,
the former Director of the Policy and Law Department of SEAC, which was
hosted on the People’s Daily’s Strong Nation BBS Forum (qiangguo luntan 强
國論壇) (People’s Daily 2009a). Mao flatly rejected the suggestion that recent
ethnic violence signaled a failure of policy: “The experience of the last sixty years
has proven that these policies are correct and have been successful.” Instead, he
assured netizens that the Party-state had the best interests of all the country’s
people at heart and had adopted a “broad mind and open heart” (boda de xiong
huai 博大的胸懷) in coordinating the development of the entire “extended
family” (dajiating 大家庭). In response to netizens’ concerns that the state’s
affirmative action policies discriminated against the Han majority, Mao denied
the appropriateness of the entire concept of ethnic discrimination, asserting that
“after new China was established, we already completely destroyed ethnic dis-
crimination and the system of ethnic exploitation, and have carried out complete
ethnic equality; thus, we cannot now use this concept of ethnic discrimination.”
As for the Party-state’s policy of “looking after” the “relatively tardy and disad-
vantaged minority groups,” Mao urged netizens to “take into consideration the
fundamental national interest and long-term developmental goals of the nation.”
The Party-state’s failure to engage in a frank, open, and robust dialogue on
these sensitive yet important topics threatens to harden Han opposition to
minority preferential treatment and undermine the prospects for genuine ethnic
and cultural pluralism in China. American law professor Cass Sunstein has dem-
onstrated how “enclave deliberation,” which takes place in the absence of com-
peting or contrasting viewpoints, leads to “group polarization,” where views not
only harden but can also lead to social violence and entropy (Sunstein 2002).
While further research is required to draw any direct link between Han online
nationalism and recent episodes of interethnic violence, the Chinese Party-state

risks losing sight of mainstream sentiment on its minority policies, overlooking
potentially toxic views that threaten to further undermine ethnic equality and
national belonging in contemporary China.
15
How University Administrators View
Ethnic Minority Students
Yu Haibo
China is a multiethnic state. Shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic
of China (PRC), the government sent a large number of linguists, ethnogra-
phers, and historians to identify the nation’s ethnic minorities. By 1979, fifty-six
ethnic groups, including the Han majority, and fifty-five ethnic minority groups,
had been officially identified (Fei 1981). The ethnic minority groups each have
their own religion, customs, and festivals, including art, music, food, housing,
dress, adornments, crafts, and other practices. Generally, ethnic minority groups
adhere more to religious beliefs than the Han population, with religion playing
an integral part in diet, marriage, festivals, and education traditions. All ethnic
minorities in China have their own languages, except the Hui and the Manchus,
who speak Putonghua. In short, each of these ethnic groups in China exhib-
its their own “culture,” which Giddens (1989: 31) defines as “the values the
members of a given group hold, the norms they follow, and the material goods
they create.”
At present, increasing numbers of ethnic minority students are studying
at Chinese universities. By 2011, the number of ethnic minority university
undergraduate students had increased to 13,496,577 (7.81 percent of total stu-
dents) (MOE 2013) from a mere 1,285 (1.4 percent) in 1950 (Department of
Economic Development 2009: 605). Universities in China, both minzu univer-
sities that are especially designed for ethnic minorities and mainstream ones,
have provided students from ethnic minority groups with scientific and tech-
nological expertise, paving the way for individual advancement. China makes
conscious efforts to teach its youth about the nation and the Chinese state, in
particular, aiming to promote a high degree of cultural and political integration
so as to unite the peripheral areas—with their ethnic minority groups—firmly
322 Yu Haibo
with the nation. The goal of integration is to ensure that groups with different
cultural backgrounds and belief systems can fully participate in society, so it acts
as a means of maintaining the country’s stability and eliminates the desire for
separatism. Education is thus an instrument to help the state to achieve common
national goals, construct a shared sense of national belonging, and unite diverse
ethnic minority cultures (Mackerras 1994; Shih 2002). Yet, at the same time,
tertiary institutions also need to consider the ethnic minority cultures that the
students bring with them. To accomplish this, universities must give increasing
consideration to their students’ diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, the
dissemination of knowledge about ethnic minority groups, and cross-cultural
communication.
In China, mid-level university administrators, such as faculty deans and direc-
tors of student affairs, as well as human resources officers, play a critical role in the
management of universities and in their students’ lives. They conduct research
and set organizational policies, which determine the organizational structure of
universities, while also influencing the campus environment in which students
study and live in. They also have direct contact with students and influence the
way students perceive their cultures through classroom teaching and various
other activities.
Because mid-level university administrators play a critical role in the life of
their universities, it is necessary to understand their views on ethnic minority
students, multiculturalism and related issues. It is expected that this study will
contribute to a greater understanding of how Chinese university administra-
tors think about ethnic minority students and the role that universities and
their management play in integrating ethnic minority students into mainstream
culture while also maintaining ethnic and cultural diversity on campus.
The treatment and management of ethnic minority cultures in universities
has been widely studied. This includes research by scholars in the United States,
Canada, and Australia on multiculturalism on university campuses. These studies
have raised concerns about educational equality for ethnic minority students,
intergroup relations, and learning outcomes for all students. In the USA, much of
the literature on college teachers and diversity has concentrated on the underrep-
resentation of ethnic minority groups at tertiary institutions (Abernethy 1999;
Mahoney et al. 2008). Reynolds (1999) stressed the importance of multicultural
How University Administrators View Ethnic Minority Students 323
counseling in schools. School counselors have a great potential to serve as cata-

lysts in the school environment and ideally have the competencies to work effec-
tively and ethically across ethnic groups. Young and Brooks (2008) studied the
levels of support for graduate students of color in educational administration
preparation programs. They suggest effective ways to support these students:
recognizing and addressing issues of race in educational administration prepa-
ration programs; effective and race-sensitive mentoring; creating multitiered
support networks; and establishing formal and informal support structures.
Many scholars have recognized the importance of cultivating diverse cul-
tures among university students in China (Clothey 2005; Liu 2005; Teng 2004;
Wang 2002). Some universities, especially those established for ethnic minori-
ties or located in ethnic minority areas, greatly value the minority cultures rep-
resented by their student body. For example, Kangding Minzu Normal College,
located in a Tibetan area of western Sichuan, initiated a series of activities to
help their students learn about local Tibetan culture (Huang 2008). Despite
this, some literature also shows that ethnic minority cultures are marginalized
in most Chinese universities and are little valued (Wang 2002). According to
Zhao (2007), Chinese universities generally provide ethnic minority students
with special enrollment quotas and subsidies, and in exchange tend to emphasize
the maintenance of ethnic unity and political loyalty on campus. These univer-
sities depict ethnic minority groups as a part of the Chinese nation and stress
collective national belonging, but Han teachers and students are indifferent to
this approach and give little attention to ethnic minority cultures. To date, there
have been few studies in either English or Chinese that consider the attitudes of
tertiary mid-level administrators towards their ethnic minority students.
Methodology
This chapter employs a qualitative research method (namely, interviews) in its

collection of data. The interviews were conducted as part of two national train-
ing programs for mid-level university cadres in May 2010 and September 2011.
The participants of each of the two training programs included 120 college deans
and other administrators from thirty of China’s provinces, municipalities and
autonomous regions. These mid-level administrators included faculty deans,
324 Yu Haibo
Communist Party and Communist Youth League committee members, and

directors from various departments including finance, library, human resources,
information office, and facility management. The researcher participated in the
program as an organizer.
For this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with university
administrators. For most questions, interviewees were free to respond as they
wished, resulting in a wide-ranging and relaxed exchange. The interview guide-
lines and questions were formulated from a literature review and the researcher’s
own insights, and the types of questions for the participants included: (1) the
percentage of minority students at their universities; (2) administrators’ positive
and negative impressions of ethnic minority students, including their academic
study, language proficiency, friendships, religious affiliation and practices, and
their participation in extracurricular activities; (3) the university’s policies for
ethnic minority students; and (4) what administrators think about the role of
ethnic minority cultures on the campus.
The researcher interviewed fifteen education administrators in May 2010 and
five more in September 2011. These administrators represented a wide variety
of personal backgrounds, exposure to minority issues, and experiences. The uni-
versities of the interviewees are listed in Table 15.1. In order to guarantee their
anonymity, personal information is not included in the table. The size, type, and
geographic location of the interviewees’ universities vary greatly. Some inter-
viewees were employed at China’s top universities (such as China Agricultural
University and China University of Political Science and Law), while others
worked at prefecture-level colleges located in ethnic minority areas (such as
Hetian Normal College); still others were at tertiary institutions dedicated to
educating ethnic minority students (such as Guangxi Minzu University and
Tibet Minzu College).
Among the twenty interviewees, five were from ethnic minority groups (Yao,
Mongolian, Uyghur, Zhuang, and Tujia) and the other fifteen were members
of the Han ethnic majority. Generally speaking, the interviewees were admin-
istrators in charge of student activities or faculty deans who had some contact
with ethnic minority students. They included two faculty-level secretaries of
the Communist Youth League, six faculty-level secretaries of the Communist
Party, seven faculty deans and vice-deans, one director of the United Front Work
Table 15.1 List of interviewees’ institutions

Number City/Province Tertiary institution
1 Beijing China Agricultural University
2 China University of Political Science and Law
3 Jiangsu Nanjing University of Science and Technology
4 China Pharmaceutical University
5 Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
6 Jiangsu University of Science and Technology
7 Guangxi Guangxi Minzu University
8 Guangxi Normal University
9 Xinjiang Hetian Normal College
10 Shaanxi Tibet Minzu College
11 Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine
12 Hunan Hunan University of Commerce
13 Yunnan Yunnan Minzu University
14 Hubei Zhongnan University of Economics and Law
15 Anhui Wanxi College
16 Qinghai Qinghai Minzu College
17 Hebei Hebei University of Economic and Business
18 Gansu Lanzhou City College
19 Wuhan Wuhan University of Science and Technology
20 Zhejiang Zhejiang University of Media and Communications
Department, one director of the graduate school, one director of the University
Office, and a president and vice-presidents of prefecture-level colleges. Their
ages ranged from 36 to 56.
The interviews lasted around one hour. Most of the interviews were arranged
at the end of the training program when the researcher had built some rapport
with the interviewees. The interviewees were very cooperative. They talked
about questions on the interview guideline, but also talked widely about their
own experiences and other related issues. In a follow-up study, the researcher
circulated a questionnaire survey among 60 university administrators at another
training program in 2011. The survey questions were designed following the
interview guidelines.
326 Yu Haibo
Views of Ethnic Minority Students and Their Cultures
This section summarizes the administrators’ views on ethnic minority students

and minority cultures, and how they deal with ethnic minority cultures on their
campuses.
Cultural Harmony and Difference
Most interviewees thought that the cultures of ethnic minorities and the Han
were simultaneously different yet harmonious. Among China’s fifty-six ethnic
groups, there were some things shared by all, which were difficult to differentiate
and to separate out. As one Yao ethnic professor from a minzu university located
in the southwest pointed out:
The Han culture is the mainstream culture and it is advanced, while the
ethnic minority cultures are unique. The Han and ethnic minorities have
intrinsic relationships and their cultures are complementary. The teachers
teach ethnic minority students the Han culture and the students also share
their native cultures with us. The interactions take place between ethnic
minority students and teachers.
This professor thought that the Han and ethnic minority students got along with
each other at his university:
Ethnic identity is not important on our campus. The students comprise
different ethnic groups. Even though the focus of our university is to serve
ethnic minority groups, some Han have become university administrators.
The motto of our university, “live in harmony and value differences,” vividly
expresses this characteristic.
One professor stated that minority students were honest and reliable, and
this was related to the local customs of the ethnic minorities. As an example, he
noted that it is not necessary for some ethnic minorities to lock their doors at
night. This professor worked at a minzu university for ethnic minority groups
and belonged to the Yao ethnic minority in China. As a result, he shared a certain
emotional bond with minority students, an understanding of minority cultures,
and a positive feeling towards minority students. In contrast, some other univer-
sity administrators had negative impressions of ethnic minority students, stating
that they “like to drink and fight” and “have violent tendencies,” and that minor-
ity student cadres were “inactive,” had “little capacity for leadership,” and were
“not proficient in Chinese.”
Generally speaking, most administrators were positive about the relationship
among ethnic minority students and the Han students. The relationships among
students also reflected ethnic relationships in the areas where the universities
were located. For example, a Zhuang interviewee from Guangxi thought that stu-
dents from different ethnic groups at the university were harmonious. However,
a Uyghur administrator from Xinjiang expressed his concerns about Han chau-
vinism, suggesting that some employers discriminated against Uyghur students
in the labor market.
When the administrators were asked about their impressions of ethnic minor-
ity students, most tended to view them as “honest,” and “unsophisticated” yet
“hard-working.” A Han professor from Beijing said that compared to some Han
students’ “worldly and snobbish” outlook, the ethnic minority students were
“warm-hearted and sincere.” Because most ethnic minority students came from
the countryside, it was felt that they had to work particularly hard to develop
their careers. Administrators believed that these minority students were the
keys for developing ethnic minority regions; however, because many were from
remote, mountainous regions, some of them had received low-quality basic edu-
cation and felt inferior to others at the universities.
In general, most administrators viewed minority and Han cultures as comple-
mentary, stressing the positive aspects of cultural diversity and its contributions
to Han culture. Yet these cultures were not necessarily seen as equivalent. Rather
some university teachers and students viewed ethnic minority cultures as “back-
ward.” In a small group discussion, when a Han administrator from Xinjiang
introduced his university, he let slip that: “There are many ethnic minorities in
the local areas; their economies and thinking are at a low level. One of our jobs is
to maintain ethnic unity and we should identify with the [advanced] culture of
the Chinese nation.” Like this administrator, others thought that the Han culture
was more “advanced” and ethnic minority cultures were “backward,” and as a
result minority cultures were not good for the status advancement of a university.
These officials appeared to overlook any potential value in ethnic minority cul-
tures, and as a consequence it is clear that some minority students have come to
328 Yu Haibo
internalize this view and thus lack confidence in their own cultures. Some ethnic
minority students seek to fully embrace mainstream culture, even to the extent
of creating an intentional distance between themselves and minority cultures.
In truth, however, each culture has its own intrinsic value, and should be both
understood and respected by others.
Low Academic Performance of Ethnic Minority Students
There are many preferential education policies for minority groups in China
(see Leibold, this volume). Since the 1950s, China has established thirteen ter-
tiary institutions for ethnic minority students, which act as centers for the study
and development of ethnic minority cultures and elite. These universities are
called minzu universities. Minzu is a Chinese term that is commonly translated
as “nationality” in English. However, nationality connotes identification with a
certain territory and state. In this study, China’s fifty-six minzu are referred to as
ethnic groups rather than nationalities, because, despite the distinctiveness of
the Chinese context, the government defines ethnic minorities and culture is still
a fundamental aspect of minzu identity. The minzu universities are different from
ordinary universities in two main aspects: first, they have a higher percentage of
ethnic minority students, and second they focus on ethnic studies such as the
study of minority languages, history and cultures.
In addition, there are preferential admission policies (youhui zhengce 優惠
政策) to assist minority students in attending colleges and universities, such as
the system of bonus points on the national entrance examinations (gaokao 高
考) and remedial classes for first-year college and university students. The state
policies allow ethnic minority students to receive bonus points on the national
college entrance examination, enabling such students to enter university with a
lower score than their Han peers. Barry Sautman (1999b: 196) concludes that
preferential policies in higher education for ethnic minority groups have “proved
to be a success in creating minority educated elites” with various specialties,
while James Leibold (this volume) highlights some of the resentment these poli-
cies have engendered among the Han majority.
In my survey data, most university administrators agree “preferential policies
provide equal educational opportunity for the students.” Yet, despite the fact that
96 percent of those surveyed agreed with this statement and stressed the positive
role that these policies play in developing ethnic minority regions, 20 percent
of the administrators thought that the academic standards of ethnic minority
students were being compromised by expanding access to higher education. Of
those surveyed, 11 percent agreed with the statement: “ethnic minority students
barely keep up with the study schedule of the university”; and 18 percent agreed
that ethnic minority students had a lower foundation for study, faced challenges
in their studying and needed extra help, and displayed lower levels of academic
performance than their Han peers. In contrast, 47 percent of those surveyed
stated that minority students had no difficulties in their study and could gradu-
ate on time. Others, however, argued that minority students’ academic perfor-
mances differed greatly: some were outstanding and some were bad.
Chinese language learning is one of the biggest challenges that ethnic minor-
ity students face. Many minority students grew up in homes where minority
languages were spoken. Most of the curriculum at universities uses Putonghua
as the medium of instruction, which makes it hard for some ethnic minority
students who have difficulty understanding Putonghua. As a result, some stu-
dents find it difficult to excel in courses conducted in Chinese, especially classi-
cal Chinese. In my survey, 67 percent of administrators indicated that minority
students’ Chinese language proficiency was lower than the Han students, and
that they could barely keep up with their studies; while only 24 percent thought
their minority students were sufficiently proficient in Chinese and did not have
problems in their studies. Others suggested that the levels of Chinese proficiency
varied across the student body.
Given these challenges, some ethnic minority students are only able to gradu-
ate if their teachers place lower requirements on them. Some of the professors I
interviewed explained that they must help minority students graduate, as there
is a large gap between the academic performance of some ethnic minority stu-
dents and their Han peers, especially in Math and English. A Han professor from
a university in northwest China said that her university allowed ethnic minority
students to pass their examinations with a 40-point mark while the Han students
required a 60-point minimum mark. Some teachers had to offer extra tutorials to
minority students after classes. The life experiences of a minority administrator
from Nanjing echoed this point:
330 Yu Haibo
When I was an undergraduate student, I felt inferior. I knew little about

urban life. At the time when we graduated, some of my classmates had
received many certificates, which were useful in finding jobs. They already
knew how to plan their futures. Yet I did not have such vision at that time. It
was a learning process for me.
Overall, most interviewees agreed that China’s ethnic preferential policies had
greatly expanded the higher education opportunities for ethnic minority stu-
dents, even though a few administrators noted that the academic outcomes of
ethnic minority students were lower than their Han counterparts.
Importance of Enrolling Ethnic Minority Students
Despite some ethnic minority students’ low academic achievements at univer-

sity, administrators recognized the importance of enrolling these students. First,
their universities trained minority elites who would help enhance the economic
development and social progress of ethnic minority areas. A university education
provides minority students with the opportunity to learn valuable knowledge
and skills, enabling them to be competitive in the labor market. These gradu-
ates are expected to have morality and expertise. Chen Yangbin (this volume)
demonstrates how the university degrees and specialties obtained by Uyghur
graduates of the Inland Xinjiang Classes (Neidi Xinjiangban 內地新疆班) have
brought them a significant amount of power in the Xinjiang job market and else-
where, and that prospective employers value the graduates’ abilities in Chinese,
English, and Uyghur.
Second, some administrators considered the inclusion of ethnic minority
students from a political perspective. Ethnic issues and interethnic harmony are
believed to be closely related to the country’s stability (People’s Daily 2009b).
Ethnic minority groups only account for about 9 percent of the national pop-
ulation, but they have acquired an importance far greater than their numbers
because they occupy 60 percent of China’s territory, with most of it in the north-
ern and western regions—politically sensitive border areas (Information Office
of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2005). Moreover, the
regions that they occupy are rich in natural resources, including minerals, forests,
and animal products crucial to China’s continued economic development. Thus,
some administers stressed that the enrollment of minority students was good for
both minority advancement and China’s national interest and stability. As one
Mongolian professor from Nanjing stated:
I was once responsible for enrolling Tibetan students. At that time, some
students with very low test scores were admitted. I was puzzled. Later, an
officer from the Ministry of Education told me that if the Communist Party
of China (CPC) did not educate these young Tibetans, other people would.
The Tibet Autonomous Region and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
are important parts of China. Having these students at our university is like
a kind of cultural communication. Through studying, they will know what
inland China looks like. It is really hard for some Tibetan students to study
here. It takes them several days to come to our university and some of them
cannot go back home for six to seven years.
All interviewees hoped that the ethnic minority students and Han students
would learn from each other and become friends. According to my interviewees,
their universities arranged shared dormitories between ethnic minority students
and their Han peers so that they could communicate and build friendships with
each other. Ethnic unity is one of the key themes of state policy and is accord-
ingly emphasized and promoted in the universities.
Representing Minority Cultures: Song, Dance, and Festival Celebrations
Ethnic minority students are involved in a variety of social activities on campus,

including language exchange, development of personal friendships, participation
in clubs, and a wide variety of specific cultural activities such as the performance
of ethnic songs, dance, and wearing of ethnic dress. My interview data, literature
review, and survey of university websites show that ethnic minority cultures are
normally represented in the form of colorful celebrations of minority culture.
Holiday celebrations are a common way to demonstrate that university admin-
istrators’ care and show concern for their ethnic minority students. Take Peking
University as an example, the university celebrated Lesser Bairam for Muslim
students on September 21, 2010. Here, University President Zhou Qifeng and
Vice Party Secretary Zhang Yan celebrated the festival with Muslim students in
the Tongyuan Canteen, where they conveyed their holiday greetings to the stu-
dents (Peking University 2010). One of my informants from Wuhan stated:
332 Yu Haibo
It is necessary to consider minority festivals. At the same time, we should

invite other groups to join the festivals. Otherwise, the minority students
are isolated. Enhancing communications and integration among ethnic stu-
dents should be a daily activity, like a little rain watering plants without a
sound.
In particular, ethnic songs and dance are the chief representations of ethnic
minority cultures on university campuses. For example, on October 29, 2009,
the Yi drama Daughter of the Sun was performed at Peking University as one of
a series of performances to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of
People’s Republic of China (Du 2009). The beautiful songs and dances of this
drama introduced the audience to Yi culture. Among the students, if there are no
specific performances organized for ethnic minority groups, minority students
sometimes sing ethnic songs and dance at parties or competitions. At a New
Year’s Party at Peking University, a Uyghur girl from the Law School performed
a unique Uyghur dance and attracted a thunderous applause (Peking University
2010). My interviewees said that minority students were active in extracurricular
activities and were willing to join dance troupes and choirs. A Han administrator
from Tibet Minzu College in Shaanxi said that compared to students at other
universities in his province, he was proud that his students won various music
competitions, despite their low academic achievement.
In addition to song and dance performances, some universities also hold
exhibitions of ethnic minority culture. For example in 2009, the School of
International Pharmaceutical Business at the China Pharmaceutical University
held an ethnic minority festival entitled “Feel the Elegant Demeanor of Ethnic
Minority Groups, Promote Ethnic Unity, and Build a Harmonious Campus.” The
activities included a poster exhibition, a quiz contest on ethnic minority knowl-
edge, and the presentation of ethnic minority costumes and music (B. Yang
2009).
Ethnic Minority Cultures at Non-minzu Universities
Most teachers at inland universities are not themselves ethnic minorities and
have little prior exposure to minority cultures and regions. Here some adminis-
trators spoke of the existence of ethnic boundaries between students, noting, for
example, that Uyghur students have a strong sense of ethnic identity, like to stay
together, and look different in their appearance from other students. Others drew
attention to the fact that Muslim students fast during the daytime in Ramadan,
the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. When they seek to resolve misunder-
standings that sometimes occur among students, administrators tended not to
stress ethnicity. All students are required to abide by university regulations and
the laws of the state. A Han Party Secretary at the College of Arts and Sciences
said: “Ethnic minority students should not be singled out as a different category.
I guess that they would not like to be picked out too.” For some administra-
tors, ethnicity is a sensitive issue and they do not know how to deal with it. My
survey showed that some administrators lacked the skills to communicate with
ethnic minority students, with only 53 percent of administrators stating that they
could skillfully communicate with their ethnic minority students. In contrast, 16
percent stated that they had communicated with ethnic minority students, but
they felt that there was a gap in understanding; and 11 percent said although they
would like to communicate with minority students, these students did not have
motivation to communicate with them. Several administrators even said that
they kept ethnic minority students at a respectful distance. The rest chose not to
answer this question.
In the survey, some university administrators stated that ethnic differences
and ethnicity should be downplayed. Some said that there was no need to organ-
ize special activities for ethnic minority students. A university administrator
from northwest China explained that they did not organize specific activities for
ethnic minority students, as it may encourage these students to stick together.
A Han administrator from Wuhan stated that regardless of which ethnic groups
students come from, they were all Chinese citizens. Ethnic minority students
should not become “special” citizens. In the universities with few ethnic minority
students, ethnic relations are not important topics of consideration, and thus do
not influence administrators’ decision-making. Some ethnic minority adminis-
trators, especially those who worked in areas with a large Han population, even
seemed to identify more closely with Han culture. For example, a Zhuang admin-
istrator from Guangxi Normal University stated during our interview:
Ethnic cultures integrate and develop, then create new cultures. At present,
because of mixed marriages and modernization in big cities, ethnic minor-
ity students at universities do not have specific ethnic traits. They have
334 Yu Haibo
all assimilated with the Han. For me, I am a university graduate and now
work at the university, and I do not feel special as a result of my ethnicity.
We seldom think about ethnicity. When we meet someone, we usually ask
where he or she come from, and sometimes ask if they can speak certain
languages. It is only when filling out a form that I think about ethnicity.
A Mongolian administrator who came from Inner Mongolia and worked in

Nanjing also revealed the following about his native culture:
There is no obligation for us to inherit Mongolian culture. It is a personal
choice as to what parts of one’s native culture one chooses to inherit. It is
true for even the culture of the Chinese nation as a whole. Ethnic groups
cannot fully develop if they do not communicate with one another. My
child has not learned the Mongolian language. If my kid learns Mongolian,
he will speak Chinese with an accent. And then it will be hard for him to
find jobs.
In this individual’s view and those of many other minority elites, the ability to
speak Chinese is directly related to one’s economic prosperity. Based on his own
life experiences, he knew firsthand the challenges that ethnic minority students
face. As he stated:
As for the ethnic minority students that come to our university, we should
not consider them as a separate category, as if they are studying overseas.
We should not think that these students necessarily have bad habits.
Despite most interviewees thinking that the cultures of ethnic minority stu-
dents and their Han peers were complementary, in daily life at non-minzu uni-
versities, especially those located in inland cities, they had few strategies for
dealing with ethnic minority cultures. A Secretary of the Communist Youth
League stated to me:
At the college level, some students may organize activities to share ethnic
minority culture. But at university level, there are not many activities.
When significant incidents occur in ethnic minority areas, a presentation
or a discussion related to ethnic minority issues will be held. That is all. We
do not highlight ethnic minority issues. The Party’s Youth League, which
guides the student organizations and clubs, as well as organizes cultural and
sports competitions for the students, does not provide a platform for ethnic
minority cultures. However, during the New Year’s celebrations or music
competitions, some ethnic minority songs and dances may be performed.
We do offer tutorials for ethnic minority students with low English skills. In
our university, students tend to focus on their major areas of study and on
improving their specialty. But recently, I have been thinking about estab-
lishing an Office of Ethnic Students Affairs.
Another Secretary of the Communist Youth League at an inland university

expressed a similar sentiment:
Ethnic minority culture is an important part of campus culture. However,
the question of how best to shape campus culture and organize various
activities is an issue. In my view, ethnic minority students should not be
treated as special, but should maintain their uniqueness. We should explore
a good system for doing this. I am thinking to build some bridges between
ethnic minority students and international students. Ethnic minority cul-
tures should be a part of the university’s cultural festival.
In general, the administrators I interviewed remained true to China’s ethnic

policies and its emphasis on ethnic unity and harmony. Yet, most educational
officials from inland, non-minzu universities are Han Chinese, and they know
little about ethnic minority cultures and regions. Some of them even intention-
ally downplay ethnicity. In universities with few ethnic minority students, it is
difficult for administrators to encourage students to share diverse cultures and
improve cross-cultural skills. In a few words, some administrators from inland
areas thought that there were no good methods for considering ethnic minority
cultures at their universities.
Discussion and Implications
This chapter has examined how mid-level university administrators view ethnic
minority students and their cultures. Some researchers conceptualize the cul-
tural, social, and economic capital of minorities in explaining their relative
underperformance (Dumais 2002). In China, ethnic minority students are nor-
mally disadvantaged economically. The Chinese state provides many preferential
policies and higher education opportunities for ethnic minority students. The
data shows that when these students enter university, to some extent, the culture
that the ethnic minority students bear is devalued. Administrators adhere to
state policy on ethnic unity but many lack sufficient skills to deal with ethnic
minority cultures on their campuses. The academic success of ethnic minority
336 Yu Haibo
students can be accomplished in ways that do not force these students to feel
that they must leave their own culture behind. The university can simultaneously
help the students in their academic study while assisting them to preserve their
sense of self and cultural traditions. In sum, there are several conclusions that can
be drawn from this study:
The Importance of Economic Development in Ethnic Minority Areas
The data presented above on mid-level university administrators’ attitudes

towards minority students reflects the larger cultural and economic predicament
of ethnic minority areas in China. The educational background of some ethnic
minority students is not at the same standard of their Han peers. Some come
from low-income families, feel helpless, and find it difficult to communicate with
others, which may lead to a sense of inferiority for these students at university.
In many cases, education in ethnic minority areas is constrained by poor
economic conditions. Most of China’s ethnic minorities reside in the peripheral
areas of China, where the economy lags behind that of the rest of the country and
poverty is a serious issue. According to the Eight-Five Poverty Alleviation Plan,
out of a list of 592 counties officially designated for state poverty alleviation, 257
are minority autonomous counties, accounting for 43.4 percent of the whole
(Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China
2005). This is despite the fact that ethnic minorities constitute only 8.49 percent
of China’s population. This low income at a county level results in a shortage of
investment in teaching facilities, teacher qualifications and training, curriculum
improvements, and teaching materials, thus creating substantial hurdles for the
achievement of high-quality education. Compared to those from inland China,
ethnic minority families do not have wide social networks in urban areas and
generally have lower incomes.
By increasing the socioeconomic development of ethnic minority areas, the
state will bring more social, economic, and cultural capital to ethnic minority
families, and in turn better facilities and teachers for the schools in ethnic minor-
ity areas. With a high-quality basic education, ethnic minority students will feel
more comfortable at university and be better able to compete with their Han
peers.
Promoting Multiculturalism on University Campuses
Universities serve not only the economic, but also the political and social inte-
gration needs of the nation-state. One of the challenges facing all universities is
how they can help minorities to gain access to social and economic resources
that are dominated by the values of the majority while, at the same time, enable
them to retain their own native cultures and identities. Here the acknowledg-
ment and promotion of cultural diversity is critical.
Ethnic minority students grow up in native ethnic cultures, each with their
own thinking styles and values. Many also face the barrier and challenge of
second language learning. If universities fail to provide a link between ethnic
minority students and campus culture, ethnic minority students may feel isolated
and disconnected, which can influence academic performance. Universities have
an opportunity, and arguably an obligation, to more fully recognize the diverse
cultures that their students bring onto campus and to help other students share
and understand these cultures.
Further consideration and research is required to assess the best platform for
universities to promote ethnic minority cultures in a sustained fashion and facili-
tate greater “respect” for ethnic minorities at the tertiary level. Some adminis-
trators stated that these methods should not treat ethnic minority students as
special and that universities can help to both maintain the uniqueness of ethnic
minority cultures while also integrating these cultures as a part of mainstream
campus culture. This platform would ideally offer some financial support for
ethnic minority students while protecting their rights and encouraging them to
serve society. Universities may also provide opportunities for the forging of new
links between ethnic minority students and international students.
Yet, for some administrators, ethnic minority cultures are still considered
to be “backward.” Some are hesitant to touch on this issue, and thus may have
downplayed it in interviews. Yet the meaning and import of ethnicity needs to be
addressed. In some cases, a focus on ethnicity can actually bring great advantages
to a university, especially as it looks outward toward a complex, diverse world.
The Guangxi Minzu University (GMU) is a good example of maximizing this
focus, seeking as it does to bring ethnicity and internationalization together to
advance its reputation. GMU is a specialist minzu university, and stresses three
338 Yu Haibo
characteristic: “ethnicity, locality, and internationalization.” Located in Guangxi,

which borders on Vietnam and is geographically close to a number of member
countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), GMU has
established a China-ASEAN Research Center and ASEAN College. GMU offers
language training for ASEAN countries, including Vietnamese, Dai language,
Laotian, Cambodian, Burmese, Malay, and Bahasa Indonesian. It also offers
majors in the literature, economy, history, culture, art, and education of ASEAN
countries. For some majors, students spend their first couple of years at GMU,
and then their junior or senior year studying in an ASEAN country. Up until
now, 3,000 foreign students have come to the university and in total 1,600 stu-
dents of the university have been abroad (Guangxi Minzu University 2010).
Thus, GMU graduates have an international vision and can work in China and
ASEAN countries. Here ethnicity has become an advantage for GMU, and an
integrated component of the university.
Increased Teacher Training and Interethnic Communication
As evidenced by this study, the role and attitude of administrators and teachers
reflect and guide the treatment of ethnic minority students. Despite the fact that
most interviewees thought that minority cultures and Han culture were comple-
mentary, and held a positive attitude toward diversity on campus, their thinking
and actions tended to rarely extend beyond rhetoric. Furthermore, it was notice-
able that some administrators devalued ethnic minority cultures. Most admin-
istrators do not have any personal experience with ethnic minority regions and
know little about the actual details of ethnic minority cultures. Some interview-
ees were unclear on how to make space for ethnic minority cultures on campus,
while others lacked skill in communicating with ethnic minority students, or
designing policies to promoting diverse cultures on the campus. Further thought
needs to be given to how ethnic minority cultures can be fully acknowledged
and promoted in Chinese university, especially beyond the purely performative
aspects of dance, songs, and cultural celebrations.
In addition, most university counselors who work directly with minority stu-
dents are fresh university graduates and may know little about the social context
of ethnic minority areas and their students. If there is a cultural disconnect
between university teachers and administrators and their ethnic minority stu-
dents, minority students may experience social isolation and cultural estrange-
ment (Yuan 2011). In order to counteract this trend, I would suggest that
universities design and implement special ethnic minority training courses for
teachers and administrators. Furthermore, creating opportunities for staff to
directly learn from and communicate with ethnic minority students in semi-
nars would also help to break down barriers in communication and assist with a
greater appreciation of ethnic pluralism on university campuses. Visiting ethnic
minority areas would also help teachers and administrators learn more about the
unique cultures, customs, and psychological traits of ethnic minority groups.
Higher Academic Requirements for Ethnic Minority Students
China provides some special consideration and preferential treatment for ethnic
minority students. It is expected that these policies are effective in helping ethnic
minority areas to develop while promoting ethnic stability and national integra-
tion. However, this special treatment also strengthens ethnic stereotypes among
members of the public, leading many Han to view minority groups as backward
and dependent on external aid, and thus incapable of looking after themselves.
Financial aid and poor academic performance at university also intensifies this
discrimination against ethnic minorities. It is true that some minority students
may “take these privileges for granted.” During one interview, a Han administra-
tor complained that many problems are created when the Han indulge the ethnic
minorities. But more often than not, minority students appreciate the special
treatment that their university offers them.
A Han Party Secretary at one university refused to lower the academic stand-
ard for ethnic minority students. He argued that lower standards discriminate
against ethnic minority students. Academic standards and performances are
influenced by regional differences, and universities do not give special considera-
tion for other students coming out of low-income areas. Thus, he argued, ethnic
minority students should also not receive this special treatment.
In my opinion, the most effective way to challenge these stereotypes is through
the students’ own efforts and demonstration of enhanced abilities. Improving
the opportunities for ethnic minority students to enter universities should not
340 Yu Haibo
compromise academic standards. If universities provide effective extra tutorials

either by other students or by teachers for minority students after classes, the
problem of poor academic results can be improved. One teacher from a minzu
university in southwest China said that the ethnic minority students “work hard,”
and they “desire to improve themselves.” If provision was made for teachers to
give extra guidance to students needing it, results would be sure to improve.
High standards greatly assist ethnic minority students to become capable and
competitive in society and in the labor market.
Notes
Introduction
1. One finds a variety of English glosses for Fei’s formulation. In addition to “pluralistic
unity,” another common translation is “unity in diversity”; yet other authors prefer
“diversity in unity.” There are obvious differences of emphasize here, with some
stressing the unity side of Fei’s equation while others the diversity side. Fei Xiaotong
remained fairly neutral in the English translation of his Tanner Lecture at the
University of Hong Kong, where he first publically introduced the phrase in 1988.
Here he rendered the expression Zhonghua minzu duoyuan yiti geju (中華民族多
元一體格局) as “plurality and unity in the configuration of the Chinese people,”
or “pluralistic yet unified configuration of the Chinese people.” Yet, a revised 2003
edition published in Chinese by the Central Minzu University Press added the fol-
lowing English title: “The pattern of diversity in unity of the Chinese nation.” To
avoid foreclosing different interpretations, we have decided against imposing a
uniform gloss for the phrase, allowing individual authors to provide their own.
Chapter 2 The Power of Chinese Linguistic Imperialism and Its

Challenge to Multicultural Education
1. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Robert Phillipson, Tove Skutnabb-

Kangas, James Leibold, and Chen Yangbin for their valuable suggestions and criti-
cism, and the participants for their critical comments at the “Multicultural Education
and the Challenge to Chinese National Integration” conference, December 2–3,
2010, La Trobe University, and at a School of International and Political Studies
seminar, Deakin University, in April 2011. Special thanks go to Kingsley Edney for
his research assistance.
2. See the interesting article about how one should refer to this language. Zhang
Wenmu advocated “Chinese language” (Zhongguoyu 中國語) at http://www.
danwei.org/language/chinas.
342 Notes to pages 46–68
3. See “Tibetan Students in China Protest over Language Policy,” BBC News, October
20, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11581189, accessed on
November 5, 2010.
4. See http://www.tibet.net/en/index.php?articletype=flash&id=2007&rmenuid=m
orenews&tab=1, accessed on May 30, 2011.
5. See “Uyghur Language Under Attack: The Myth of “Bilingual” Education in the
People’s Republic of China,” http://uhrp.org/docs/UyghurLanguageUnderAttack.
pdf, accessed on 11 November 2012; and “UAA concerned by top Chinese official’s
comments on language policy in East Turkestan,” http://uhrp.org/articles/2232/1/
UAA-concerned-by-top-Chinese-officials-comments-on-language-policy-in-East-
Turkestan-/index.html, accessed on November 11, 2012.
6. Ma made such a remark during a workshop at La Trobe University, Australia,
December 2–3, 2010.
7. I would like to thank James Leibold for this point. Leibold (2007) has discussed the
work of C. Pat Giersch, John Herman, Donald Sutton, William Rowe and others
working on the late imperial frontier in the South.
8. See http://www.xxz.gov.cn/goxx/situation.php?id=13, accessed on November 11,
2012.
9. See http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/20050301/index.htm, accessed on Novem
ber 11, 2012.
10. Of course, one can argue that the primary reason for adopting simplified Hanzi was
the proliferation and universalization of basic education.
11. We need to investigate this further. To what extend did Hanzi become the lingua
franca of commerce in premodern China, like what Malay did in Southeast Asia?
What role did premodern markets play in spreading the Han script?
12. Ma made such a remark at a workshop at La Trobe University, Australia, December
2–3, 2010.
13. See chapters by Linda Tsung, Zuliyati Simayi, and Zhao Zhenzhou in this volume.
Chapter 3 How Do You Say “China” in Mongolian?
1. I met and argued with them on many occasions since I came back to China from the
USA in 2008.
2. This line of argument is well developed by Pan Jiao (2003), Chen Jianyue (2004),
Wang Xien (2009), Du Yonghao (2009), and Zhang Haiyang (2011).
3. See V. I. Lenin, “Kriticheskie zametki po national’nomu voprosu,” as cited in
Slezkine (1996: 205).
4. Since September 1933, the Red Army was time and again in danger of being wiped
out by the Guomindang or Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek and had to
launch the so-called Long March in October 1934. As a result, they sought to unite
all sectors and gather support in all directions, including that from the minorities, as
an urgent priority. Though the discourse of class was dominant, Han cultural pride
Notes to pages 69–74 343
and Han centrism never disappeared. As later developments prove, the temporary
concession given to minorities only served to assimilate them when the time was
ripe, or so many Han elites hoped.
5. Regional autonomy is one important component of the PRC state system, by which
the national minorities are supposed to practice their autonomous rights under the
unified guidance of the central government. Five Autonomous regions (that are
equal to provinces in administrative structure) were established between 1947 and
1965: Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (May 1, 1947); Uyghur Autonomous
Region (October 1, 1955); Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (March 5, 1958);
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (October 25, 1958); and Tibet Autonomous
Region (September 1, 1965).
6. Interview with Wu Shuizi, Head of China National Minority Languages and
Writings Translation Bureau (November 10, 2009).
7. See http://www.bjethnic.gov.cn/zcfg/PolicyDetail.asp?id=90&pos=1, accessed on
July 13, 2005.
8. See http://www.nmg.xinhuanet.com/bnfynmg/bnbs/zzp/zz31.htm, accessed on
July 13, 2005.
9. The region was returned to its former size in 1979 after the fall of the Gang of Four,
largely due to the personal efforts of Ulanhu, the Mongolian CPC leader, who sur-
vived the Cultural Revolution.
10. During a conference in Beijing in June 2010, when a member of the People’s
Political Consultative Conference proposed that the Han and Uyghurs should learn
each other’s language, a vice president of a university in Xinjiang immediately pro-
tested, arguing that the proposal would ruin the fruits of Sinification and encourage
separatism.
11. Many oral dialects are not mutually communicative; the discourse hindrance
between Cantonese, Fujianese, and northern dialects are notorious cases to cite.
But as discussed by He Baogang (this volume), the Han script has long played an
important role in connecting these oral dialects. Even in ancient times many lan-
guages, Japanese and Korean included, which were beyond the comprehension of
non-speakers have been actively communicating with each other through the Han
script.
12. Stevan Harrell analyses three kinds of civilizing projects that took place in China,
namely, the Confucian civilizing project, the Christian civilizing project, and the
communist civilizing project. Though the center theoretically should treat all cul-
tural groups as equals it had to speak in the idiom of Confucianism that regards Han
ways as better and believes that minorities should be civilized up to the levels of the
civilizer. See Harrell (1995: 3–36).
13. As part of our CASS (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) Project, “An Investigation
of Current Conditions and Development of National Minorities in China” (2000–
2001), our fieldwork group went to Ürümqi and Hami in Xinjiang in 2001, during
which time the author conducted interviews in Ürümqi on the HSK. The interviews
took place on September 19–24, 2001, and included a total of eleven interviewees,
which included Han, Uyghur, Mongol and Xibo participants, who were leading
cadre for the Nationalities Affairs Commission of the People’s Congress of the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the HSK office, Xinjiang Normal University,
and the Nationality Studies Department of the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.
14. The Russian theorist Bakhtin studies the centrifugal forces in language that “a
unitary national language seeks to contain”; heteroglossia brings with it stratifica-
tion, diversity and randomness. Heteroglassia also ensures dynamics in the life of
language. Cf. Clark and Holquist (1984: 13, Introduction).
15. Lydia Liu theorizes the “translingual practice” by looking at how “people establish
and maintain hypothetical equivalences between words and their meanings?” “What
does it mean to translate one culture into the language of another on the basis of
commonly conceived equivalences?” (1995: xv, Preface). Liu raises “the possibil-
ity of rethinking cross-cultural interpretation and forms of linguistic mediation
between East and West” (ibid.). While the East-West divide is not as absolute as
Liu may lead us to believe, the mediation between Han and non-Han languages and
cultures can be no less meaningful even though they both belong to the “East.”
16. Viveiros de Castro describes a type of communicative disjuncture where the inter-
locutors are not talking about the same thing, and are unaware of this. Cf. Blaser
(2009).
17. I draw on the idea of “Thirdness” developed by the American semiotician Charles
Peirce who is known to campaign for semiotic realism: sign or firstness is “the
sheer thisness, or existence”; object or secondness is “dyadic, or reactive, relations
between things”; interpretant or thirdness is “triadic, or representational, rela-
tions among things.” Cf. Hoopes (1991). Different cultural contexts and historical
encounters lead to different interactions among firstness, secondness, and thirdness:
“abstract” thought is not that far from concrete material process, and thinking is “a
brain process” as Peirce argues (ibid.).
18. Here I follow a weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis to conduct “nomen-
clatural archaeology,” although there is no denying the power of reality that shapes
and limits our incorporated practice. Language influences, and does not determine,
thinking. Linguistic relativity drew inspiration from William von Humboldt and
Franz Boas and was weakened due to challenges from Chomsky’s linguistics and
cognitive anthropology. However, it has enjoyed a recent revival thanks to the efforts
of scholars such as Gumperz and Levinson (1996). The life of a word is maintained
through social practice while the “social memory” of the word influences human
cognition and action in the process of being used. This parallels Giddens’s struc-
turation theory, which holds that human action is performed within the context of a
pre-existing social structure, and through human action the social structure is repro-
duced, modified, and sustained. Cf. Giddens (1984).
19. Its original meaning might come from “inner side” (*oru), as conjectured by Sergei
Starostin et al. for Tungusic (*[x]uri-), Mongolian (*oro-), Turkic (*or-), and
Japanese (*ura). Cf. Starostin, Dybo, and Mudrak (2003: 1062). It seems that the
original is a locomotive verb that denotes “entering” from outside.
20. According to Christopher Atwood’s research, as a translation of the Chinese term

Zhongguo, the Mongolian term Dumdadu ulus “appeared in the history of the
Mongolian nobility written in 1735 by the Eight-Banners bannerman Lomi, and
in the writings of Injannashi (1837–92) from southeast Inner Mongolia whose
Khökhe Sudur or Blue Chronicle of 1871 exercised a tremendous influence on those
Mongols familiar with Chinese literary culture.” However, both Lomi and Injannashi
limited Dumdadu ulus “to the area south of the Great Wall,” and “both continued to
speak of Mongolia as a separate ulus or realm.” Cf. Atwood (2002: 41).
21. The Mongols traditionally lay more emphasis on people, herds, and movement,
which is well hinted at by the words ulus (people) and oron (enter, placing) and their
semantic links to both “empire” and “nation-state.”
22. The Khitan (Qidan) conquered Northern China and established the Liao dynasty
(907–1125). Due to their domination, the “Central State” came to be known as
“Cathay” in English and in several other European languages. Cf. Lathan (1958:
10); Jia (1989).
23. Following a linguistic ecology model, I prefer to take a symbiotic approach to such
“nomenclatural archaeology.” Mühlhäusler makes use of the metaphor of language
to explain and describe the complex interlay between languages, speakers and social
practice. Cf. Mühlhäusler (1996). The merit of such an approach is that researchers
can focus more on the processes of seeking overlapping consensus by peoples of
different backgrounds—a process that helped to construct what China is in modern
times. Another merit of the approach is that it helps to identify misunderstandings,
or rather competing/conflictual understandings of ethnic and national identities.
Chapter 4 Bilingual Education and Language Policy in Tibet
1. Putonghua is the official spoken language for administration and education in

today’s China. It is based on the Mandarin language of the late Qing dynasty.
Today Putonghua is used nation-wide among the Han, Hui, Manchu and many
other ethnic groups which consist of over 94 percent of China’s total population,
while there are many local dialects among Han groups in various regions such as
Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi, and other provinces besides minority languages (such
as Tibetan, Mongolian, Kazak, Uyghur, Korean, Yi, and others).
2. There were only eight monasteries and eight hundred monks in the TAR in 1976.
The total number of monks increased to 41,800 in 1994 (Ma 2011b: 159).
3. “Han classes” are defined by the language of instruction and not by the ethnic back-
ground of the students. Therefore, there are some Tibetan students in Han classes.
These Tibetan students would take their university entrance exams in Putonghua,
and thus are classified as minkaohan. At the same time, there are also a small number
of Han students in “Tibetan classes” with Tibetan as the language of instruction, and
they are classified as hankaomin (Han students studied in minority languages and
taking their exams in that minority language). The situation and classification is the
same in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.
4. “Teaching sites” refers to classrooms that only offer first through third grade primary
school education with one to two teachers. This is the school form in remote grass-
land or mountainous areas with a very low population density. After completing
grades one through three, these students must attend schools in towns. See Chapter
5 for further information on schooling in Tibetan nomadic areas.
5. The required scores for university admission in Tibet are lower than the national
level. For example, the national average for the lowest cut-off score was 420 in 1983
but only 80 in the TAR (cf. Yang 1989: 158). “The score for university admission
was 100 for Tibetan candidates and 200 for Han students in 1983, but the score was
above 400 in other provinces” (cf. An 1989: 242). In 2002, the admission score was
273 for Tibetans and 340 for Han students in humanities and social science disci-
plines and 235 for Tibetan and 340 for the Han in science disciplines (cf. Wu 2005:
249).
6. See http: //ivysuccess.com/harvard_2009.html/, and http:/ivysuccess.com/
upenn_2009.html/.
Chapter 5 Popularizing Basic Education in Tibet’s Nomadic Regions
1. Lhasa-Nakchu Senior Secondary School, established in 2004 in Lhasa, is a dislo-

cated school that selectively admits junior secondary graduates from Nakchu and
Ngari Prefectures. In comparison to the two nomadic prefectures, Lhasa enjoys both
relatively lower altitudes and richer financial, teaching, and human resources. The
school, strategically designed to cultivate talents for nomadic regions, has gained
strong financial supports from both Nakchu and Lhasa governments.
2. Nyerong people speak a dialect different from the standardized Tibetan language
taught and used at school.
Chapter 6 The Practice of Ethnic Policy in Education
1. Hui students make up 4.74 percent of the enrollment; Manchus 0.05 percent, and
Daurs 0.02 percent, which together represents 4.82 percent of total enrollments.
Statistics from the Education Bureau, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 2009.
2. Minority students enrolled in Han primary and middle schools account for 9.84
percent.
3. Minority students receiving a bilingual education make up 13.66 percent of all the
registered students in primary and middle schools.
4. Statistics on enrollment at different schools comes from the Education Bureau,
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 2009.
5. Bilingual education, its definition, and its corresponding teaching languages and
modes will be discussed in details below.
Chapter 7 Trilingual Education and School Practice in Xinjiang
1. The laws and regulations concerned include the Guidelines for Regional Autonomy
for Minority Nationalities in PRC (1952); Opinions Concerning Improving the Work of
Minority Education (1980); The Constitution of the PRC (1982); The Law on Regional
Ethnic Autonomy (1984); The Regulation of Illiteracy Elimination (1988); The Higher
Education Law (1999); The General Language and Script Law (2000); The Law of
Compulsory Education (2006); Outline of China’s Middle and long Term Educational
Development (2010).
2. The political structure of the XUAR is the same as in all other provinces and regions.
At the top of the structure lies the Xinjiang Regional Politburo Standing Committee
under the direct control of the central government. Under it are the Regional Party
Congress, the Military Affairs Commission, the Regional People’s Congress, and
the Regional Government. Within the regional government there are three admin-
istrative levels, duplicating the central system in Beijing: regional, districts, and
counties/cities. The regional government has direct control over two cities, eight
districts, and five autonomous prefectures. There are seventy-nine counties/cities
and six autonomous counties below the districts and the prefectures. Among them,
thirty-five are border counties.
3. Figures are from the 2008 Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook (Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region Bureau of Statistics 2008: 79).
4. To maintain the anonymity of informants, the actual school names are not given and
parents are identified by ethnic group and number.
5. Xinjiang jiaoyu weiyuanhui [Xinjiang Education Commission], Hanyu 2 [Chinese
textbook Volume 2] (Ürümqi: Xinjiang jiaoyu chubanshe [Xinjiang Education
Press], 2008): 2.
6. Chairman Mao Zedong said this in 1951 in order to praise and encourage a very
brave 8-year-old pupil in Suzhou, Chen Yongkang, who helped to catch a spy. Mao’s
words have become a nationwide slogan and have been posted in nearly every class-
room in China since then.
textbook Volume 2] (Ürümqi: Xinjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 2008): 18–19.
textbook Volume 2] (Ürümqi: Xinjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 2008): 12–13.
Chapter 8 Multicultural Education and Ethnic Integration
1. Data from the Sixth National Census of 2010.

2. According to the Sixth National Census of 2010, there are about 206,000 Lahu
people in Lancang County accounting for 41.9 percent of its total population.
3. A script created by the government was widely used between 1952 and 1958.
Unfortunately, the Great Leap Forward Movement (dayuejin yundong 大躍進
運動) in 1958–60 initiated a wave of campaigns that attempted to accelerate the
process of achieving socialism and eliminate underdeveloped cultures, and which
targeted ethnic minority languages and scripts. In 1966, the ten-year Cultural
Revolution (wenhua dageming 文化大革命) started. Near its end in 1976, ethnic
culture revived and eventually thrived in the way that it had after the founding of the
nation. However, since the 1980s, the great pace of globalization and marketization
has undermined ethnic minority scripts.
4. There were no schools in the Lahu mountainous area before 1947.
5. Universalized four-year primary education was introduced in minority regions, and
six-year primary education was introduced during the 1990s. The Chinese govern-
ment implements compulsory education of different kinds (four-year, six-year, and
nine-year) according to the specific situation of different areas.
6. Data from the Bureau of Education, Lancang County.
7. Data from the Muga Township Government.
8. We collected the academic scores of the Lahu Girls’ Class over a nine-year period
and analyzed them by using SPSS16.0.
9. In 2005, the annual personal income of the Lahu people living in the mountainous
areas was about US$80.
Chapter 9 Towards Another Minority Educational Elite Group in

Xinjiang?
1. These programs are referred to by a variety of names in Chinese, such as Xinjiangban

(新疆班, Xinjiang Classes), neidiban (內地班, Inland Classes), or Xinjiang nei-
gaoban (新疆內高班, an abbreviation for Inland Xinjiang High School Classes).
This chapter uses the term Xinjiangban as it is used in official documents available
at http://www.xjban.com/. Recently, there has appeared another type of neidiban:
neichuban (內初班, an abbreviation for Inland Junior Boarding Classes) which are
open to Uyghurs and other minority primary school graduates in Xinjiang. It is said
that the neichuban prepares graduates for the Xinjiangban.
2. It is reported that the majority of the graduates eventually return to Xinjiang where
they seek employment in public organizations, the civil service, and the private
sectors. Only a very small number remains in inland cities.
3. During the Xinjiang neigaoban program from 2003 to 2007, several students returned
to Xinjiang due to health problems or studied overseas. The data about the neigao-
ban graduates’ university admissions is drawn from the school’s website. However,
in order to maintain confidentiality, I have not identified the names of the schools.
4. These universities are part of the “National Key Universities and Colleges” project
designated by Ministry of Education (also known as “Project 211”) that receives
additional central government funding to raise their quality and complete globally.
5. Occasionally, Xinjiangban graduates complain that this policy limits their choice of
majors at university and is thus unsatisfactory.
6. Baidu is the leading Chinese search engine on the Chinese mainland, with its market
share increasing after Google’s exit from the China market in 2010.
7. Since many minkaomin students from Xinjiang have also undertaken one or two years
of university-level preparatory classes before beginning their formal program in the
east, Xinjiang neigaoban graduates tend to call them Xinjiang Classes (Xinjiangban),
causing them to be easily confused with Xinjiang neigaoban graduates.
Chapter 10 Uyghur University Students and Ramadan
1. I would like to thank James Leibold and Chen Yangbin for their invaluable com-
ments and suggestions as I wrote and revised this chapter.
2. Prior to 2009, the Minzu University of China (Zhongyang Minzu Daxue 中央
民族大學) was officially translated into English as the Central University for
Nationalities.
3. Although the verb tutmaq may be translated most accurately as “holding,” I refer to
“observing” the Ramadan fast for sake of convenience. For an interesting discussion
on this topic, see Dautcher (2009: 285).
4. In addition to my experiences with Uyghur students in Beijing, I also witnessed
several young Han Chinese attending Easter Sunday mass at Wangfujing’s St Joseph’s
Cathedral on March 23, 2008. See also Baranovitch (2003).
5. The idea to have students keep dietary journals was inspired by similar journals
Maris Boyd Gillette (2000) had Hui residents in Xi’an keep in order to record con-
sumption practices.
6. I intended to duplicate my 2006 study when I returned to China for a six-month
research trip, June through December 2010. However, because the dates of Ramadan
in 2010 (August 11–September 9) fell during universities’ summer recess (usually
July 1–September 1), most Uyghur students were in Xinjiang for the majority of
Ramadan.
7. For an overview of this topic see Millward (2007), especially Chapters 1 and 2.
8. For convenience, I treat “ethnonational groups” as a singular entity, but I acknowl-
edge that ethnonational groups rarely, if ever, are unitary actors.
9. Even though novice monks under the age of eighteen can enter Tibetan monaster-
ies, the CPC has implemented a quota system that limits the number of monks and
incarnate lamas (tulkus) a given monastery may house. See Kolås and Thowsen
(2005: 68–92). In addition, Paul Nietupski, who has conducted extensive research
on monasticism at Labrang, explained to me through personal communication that
CPC officials provide input into the “historical, ideological, and political” content of
monastic education.
10. Paula Schrode (2008: 42n84) noted similar circumstances during her 2004 field-
work in Ürümqi.
11. From my experience conducting research among Uyghur students who are living in
Beijing, very little importance is attached to the minkaomin and minkaohan labels.
As one male Uyghur friend explained, “There is no difference [between minkaomin
and minkaohan Uyghurs]—we are all Uyghur” (Hechqandaq pärq yoq. Biz häm-
mimiz Uyghur).
12. Uyghur language courses account for 27.2 percent of total classroom time in ele-
mentary minkaomin schools.
13. According to the “Regulations on Routine Service,” which outlines the rules for
individuals serving in the People’s Liberation Army, servicemen “may not take part
in religious or superstitious activities (United States Department of State 2004).
14. Although some variation exists in the implementation of these rules, information
gathered from my research indicates that the vast majority of schools hosting an
Inland Xinjiang Class do not allow parents to visit their children.
15. Students are permitted to observe Islamic dietary norms and are prepared halal
meals cooked either by a local Hui or a Uyghur chef.
16. This information was provided in conversation with Batur’s neighbor, who was also
Batur’s classmate at the boarding school. This classmate, who has recently immi-
grated to a country in the Middle East, spoke candidly about the time he and Batur
spent at the boarding school.
17. Aynur’s status as either a minkaomin/minkaohan is rather complicated. The Inland
Xinjiang Classes are, in every sense of the term, minkaohan schools as all instruc-
tion is conducted in Putonghua. However, Inland Xinjiang Classes are regarded as
a separate mode of schooling. Interestingly, Aynur describes herself as minkaomin
because before enrolling in the Inland Xinjiang Class program, she attended minkao
min schools.
18. Although by September 2010, I used the Uyghur language during most interactions
with Uyghur students, I agreed with this particular individual, who is an English
major, that I would speak to her using only Uyghur and she would speak to me only
in English.
Chapter 11 The Trilingual Trap
1. Most of these foreigners came from South Korea (around 20 percent) and Japan
(11 percent). The other countries include Burma (7 percent), Vietnam (6 percent),
France (3 percent), India (3 percent) and Germany (2 percent). This number
excludes residents of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The data come from the
National Bureau of Statistics of China, www.stats.gov.cn, accessed on September 15,
2011.
2. Data come from the Ministry of Education website, www.moe.edu.cn, accessed on

July 30, 2009.
Chapter 12 Identity and Multilingualism
1. Ethnic Koreans are regarded as politically important because of their key role in
the liberation of Manchuria, the Chinese Civil War (1946–49) and the Korean
War (known as the “Resist-America and Aid-Korea” campaign, 1950–53) and
because of their history of peaceful cohabitation with Han people and loyalty to the
Communist Party of China (CPC) and socialist regime.
2. By the end of 2010, there were 322 Confucius Institutes and 369 Confucius
Classrooms established in 96 countries.
Chapter 13 Intellectual Styles and Their Implications for

Multicultural Education in China
1. Within the context of Hofstede’s model, a society refers specifically to a country.

However, beyond Hofstede’s model, society can also refer more broadly to other
groups based on such dimensions as cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Thus one
might speak of the specific cultural dimensions of an ethnic or cultural group.
2. These conceptions of masculine and feminine can be viewed as stereotypical. I wish
to make clear that I refer here to Hofstede’s use of the terms, and not my own.
3. Field-independent people tend to see objects or details as discrete from their back-
grounds and they prefer to work in groups; field-dependent people tend to be
affected by the prevailing field or context and they prefer to work by themselves.
Chapter 14 Han Chinese Reactions to Preferential Minority

Education in the PRC
1. One notable exception is Yi Lin’s examination of Han teachers and school children
in Qinghai province. See Yi (2008), especially Chapter 3.
2. Sautman suggests that the growing gap in social and economic status due to an
acceleration of economic reform could make preferential admissions “a subject for
debate, at least in elite circles,” but did not anticipate the way the Internet revolution
would broaden public discourse to include non-elite voices and contestation.
3. An eight-month survey of fifteen different China-based blog service providers
(BSPs) in 2008 revealed that the level of censorship varies tremendously across BSPs
and, as a result, “a great deal of politically sensitive material survives in the Chinese
blogosphere, and chances for survival can likely be improved with knowledge and
strategy. Cf. MacKinnon (2009). See also Rabgey (2008) and G. Yang (2009).
4. On the discourse of suzhi and its relationship to minority education see Lin (2008:
53–58).
5. In a similar vein, Professor Ma Rong of Peking University has criticized what he
sees as the unnecessary “politicization” of ethnic affairs in China, and calls for the
replacement of the rigid minzu category with a more fluid and malleable concept of
ethnicity (zuqun 族群). See Ma Rong (2007b, 2012).
6. For a comprehensive analysis of this interethnic, interregional, and gender diversity
of education levels based on data from the 1982 and 1990 censuses, see Lamontagne
(1999: 133–71).
7. Originally available at http://www.hanminzu.com/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=90233
&extra=&page=1, but then reposted as “Jiu fangqi qishixing ‘youhui’ pingdeng
duidai yanhuang houyi de gongkai xin” [Open letter calling for the abandonment of
discriminatory ‘preferential treatment’ and the equal treatment of the descendants
of Yan and Huang], Sina blogspot, March 5, 2006, available at http://blog.sina.com.
cn/s/blog_48aad69b0100025t.html.
8. The original news article can be found at http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/14562/
4714275.html.
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Index
absolute equality 308, 311 barrel theory 74

academic achievements 20, 190–3, 197, Basiba script 50–1, 53
205, 214, 330 basic education 12, 19, 35–6, 107–15,
acculturation 34, 75, 276 117, 119, 121, 123, 125–9, 146, 169,
strategies 276 173, 254, 327, 336, 342, 346
actual equality 306 belonging 209, 232, 300
adaptive personality traits 290 national belonging 1, 7, 14–6, 150,
affirmative action policies 23, 206, 214, 319, 322–3
300, 312, 317–8 bifurcated educational system 148–50
all under heaven (tianxia) 5 bilingual
American dream 262 education 9, 18–9, 34–6, 62, 83–6, 99,
anti-local-minority-rightist movement 70 101, 103, 105, 129, 135–6, 143–5,
Arab script 102 147–50, 165, 181–3, 342, 345–7
assimilation 5, 17, 28–9, 35, 56, 58, 64, Korean schools 266, 272
69, 71, 75, 264, 317 minority education 132
atheism 226 script 51
authoritarianism 65 bilingualism 9, 18–9, 71, 74, 99, 144–8,
autonomous region(s) 14, 18–9, 22, 27, 165
35, 38, 42, 55–6, 63, 66–7, 71, 74, boarding school(s) 2, 21, 36–8, 47, 108,
84, 102, 108, 131, 134, 136, 138–40, 115, 120, 128, 201, 231, 234–5, 238,
151, 164, 167, 169, 202, 206, 221, 350. See also dislocated schools;
239, 244–5, 248, 288, 294, 305, 323, Xinjiangban
331, 343–4, 346–7 bonding social capital 37
border-crossing groups 256
backward/backwardness (luohou) 6, 24, bridging social capital 38
29, 33, 40, 55, 74–5, 107, 118, 194, Buyi minority 51–2, 54
263–4, 268–9, 288–9, 304, 311, 327,
337, 339 Caucasian 7, 286–7, 290
Baidu 207, 349 Central Land/Regions 76
barbarians 15, 76 central-peripheral relations 240
396 Index
China model 11 schools and education 54

Chinese Confucius Institutes 60, 262, 351
citizens 15–6, 27, 268, 272, 318, 333 content-based learning 184
civilization 9, 29, 72 cosmopolitan 4, 55, 205, 208, 245
culturalism 21, 34, 275 critical
dialects 59, 241 pedagogy 41
discursive power 11 pluralism 1, 30–3, 36, 43
educators and academics 8 cross-cultural communication 322
language acquisition 270 cultural
language competence 192 assimilation 28–9, 71
linguistic imperialism 17, 45, 47–8, 53, autonomy 7, 243
55, 57, 59, 61–4, 341 capital 61, 75, 238, 264, 317, 336
linguistic policy 46 estrangement 339
nation (Zhonghua minzu) 5, 10, 21–2, heritage 11, 30, 37, 107, 240, 256, 270
28, 39, 77, 84, 195, 226, 240, 259, identities 36, 43, 213
262, 306, 323, 327, 334, 341 inheritance 118
proficiency 45, 164, 182, 248, 252, 329 integration 83, 272. See also under
Chineseness 5 integration
Chongqing incident 23–4, 300–3, 306, logics 75
309, 315 pluralism 2, 8, 12–3, 15–6, 23–4, 41,
civic governance 317 275, 318. See also pluralism
civic-territorial sovereignty 75 “quality” (suzhi) 306
civilizing project/mission 73, 260, 263, recognition 36, 38, 42, 204, 247
311, 343 relativism 4
Civil Rights movement 11, 104 soft power 62
classic liberalism 3 values 3, 197, 269, 283
cognitive stereotypes/style 23, 280 vitality 32, 42
collective rights/empowerment 3, 243–4, cultural and ethnic pluralism 300, 317
254 cultural and linguistic homogeneity 75
common Cultural Deprivation Theory 193
market 59 Cultural Discontinuity Theory 193
speech 55, 134 Cultural Revolution 43, 70–1, 88–9, 112,
written language 7 117, 343, 348
Communist Party of China (CPC) 6, 55, cultural-ecological environment 193
67, 131, 204, 222, 239, 331, 351 culturally marginalized groups 239, 255
Communist Youth League 324, 334–5 culture-specificity of intellectual styles
community schools 52, 54, 87–9 295
Confucian 5–6, 10, 30, 32, 40, 43, 47, 52, curricula reform 127–8
54, 73, 261, 264, 270, 314, 343
communitarianism 5 Dalai Lama 56, 59–60, 85–7
cultural heritage 270 demarcating and institutionalizing
culturalism 5 boundaries 224
cultural superiority 73 democratic reform 56
Index 397
dialect 9, 59–60, 73, 83, 94, 168, 241, classical elite 203
343, 345–6 educational elite(s) 21, 201–3, 205–7,
dietary 209, 211, 213–9, 348
journals 222–3, 230–1, 349 ethnic elites 242, 253
restrictions 174, 211, 217 feeling elite 205
discourse 3, 7–12, 22, 59, 64, 74, 163–4, local elites 49, 60
222, 259–61, 264, 266–7, 274–5, Manchu elites 52–3
300, 310–3, 316–7, 342–3, 351–2 minority elite(s) 42, 105, 204, 206,
analysis 267 213, 304, 307, 330, 334,
discrimination 36, 40, 42, 142, 162, 169, modern elites 203–4
184, 202, 205, 215–6, 219, 238, Mongol elites 75
275–6, 300, 303–4, 311, 318, 339 national elite 104–5
dislocated school(s) 7, 21, 92, 214–6, political elites 60, 69, 204, 206
235, 346. See also boarding schools; Tibetan elites 93, 102
Xinjiangban Uyghur elites 60, 203–4, 209, 215–6
divergent-convergent thinking 281 empowerment 22, 41, 239–40, 242–4,
diversity with Chinese characteristics 40. 253–5, 257, 275–6
See also duoyuan yiti enclave deliberation 318
dominant language(s) 51, 53, 60–3, 138, English linguistic imperialism 61
181, 233, 275 ethnic
dual apartheid 317
identities 64, 179 autonomy 67, 70, 101, 131, 134, 163,
structure 14 305, 347
duoyuan yiti 9, 17, 29, 83, 184, 195, 238, boundaries 38, 332
240, 259, 275, 341. See also multicul- caging 16
turalism; pluralism conflict(s) 19, 27–8, 31, 105
dilemma 244
East Asian civilization 57 discrimination 303, 318
economic diversity and national unity 259. See
globalization 30–1 also duoyuan yiti
integration 59, 195 division (minzu huafen) 303
reforms 27, 30–2, 43, 243, 351 education 6–9, 11, 274, 305
educational equality 106, 131, 301, 318–9
achievement(s) 21, 182, 202, 204–5, equality and unity 131
208, 218, 269 examination papers 170
and propaganda systems 14 harmony 1, 12, 330
aspirations and strategies 39 integration 21, 37–8, 187, 189–90,
elite stratum 202, 205 193, 197, 347. See also under
services 107, 128 integration
elite(s) intergroup relations 32, 43
black elites 104 migrant children 34
Chinese elites 253 minority classes (minzuban) 164
398 Index
minority scripts 163, 348 field dependence-independence 281

origin 11 folk theories of success 33, 78
pluralism 18, 43, 195, 300, 317, 339 forced assimilation 317. See also Han
plurality within the organic unity of chauvinism
the Chinese nation 28. See also foreigners 8, 15, 30, 272, 303, 350
duoyuan yiti formal equality 306
potential (minzu jituan) 225 frontier 2, 11, 15, 18–9, 21, 47–8, 53, 55,
revitalization 2 81, 304–5, 307, 342
scandal 299 function of language 143–4
school(s) 7, 14, 106, 169, 245
separatism 64 gaitu guiliu 17, 47–8, 54, 56, 60, 62
songs and dance 247, 332 gender
stereotypes 339 disparity 187, 191
stratification 29 issues 20
tensions 17, 40, 67, 299 Genetic Differences Theory 192
unity 12, 27–8, 39, 196, 323, 327, genuine cultural and ethnic pluralism
331–2, 335 317. See also duoyuan yiti; multicul-
ethnic and national belonging 7 turalism; pluralism
ethnic-specific extracurricular activities Great Leap Forward 69, 88, 348
270 Great Unity 5–6, 8, 17, 46, 56, 59
ethno-history 67 group polarization 318
ethnographic field study 202 guojia 76, 261
ethnonational guoyin 55
groups 224–5, 349
identity 222, 224–7, 237–8 halal (qingzhen) 211–3, 217, 231, 350
studies 10, 308 Han
ethnonationalism 56, 228 chauvinism 79, 327
ethnopolitical entrepreneur 224 Chinese 2, 23, 27, 30, 33, 39, 45, 51–3,
etymological 55, 60, 63, 87, 117, 135, 137–9,
anxiety 65, 76, 78 167–8, 170, 172–3, 175, 178, 181,
plurality 75, 78 183, 189, 191, 224, 231–2, 238,
experimental trilingual class 22, 239, 242, 241, 264, 267, 269–71, 299, 301,
245, 250 335, 349, 351
external (i.e., beyond China) power 183 cultural capital 238
extra points (jiafen) 23, 141–2, 299, culture 39, 267
300–4, 306, 308–9, 312–4. See also culture 15, 17, 190, 213, 218, 310,
university entrance exam 326–7, 333, 338
cybernationalists 311–2, 316
federalism 6, 58 schools 93, 135, 138–40, 146–7, 149,
festivals 14, 211, 321, 332 165, 169, 172, 272
Fei Xiaotong 9–11, 17–8, 28, 30–1, 195, script 46–55, 57, 64, 342–3
238, 240, 259, 275, 341 settlers 240
Index 399
state/people 76 indigenize 8, 12
traitors (Hanjian) 300, 316 indigenous minorities 201
hanguk baram 260–2, 270, 273 individual empowerment 243–4, 254
Hanist 310–3, 315–6 inferiority and vulnerability 20
Hanyu pinyin 55, 66, 178 in-group discrimination 202, 215–6, 219
harmonious Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region 66,
multiculturalism 2, 16, 31–4, 43, 108, 169, 239, 343
184. See also duoyuan yiti; innovation 118, 123, 281–2
multiculturalism institutional obstacles 38
society 14, 29, 31–2, 43, 185 integration 8, 9–12, 20–1, 27–8, 31–2,
yet different 40, 43. See also duoyuan 36–8, 40–1, 83, 106–7, 150–1, 162,
yiti 166, 169–70, 174, 181–2, 184–5,
harmony without uniformity 10. See also 187, 190, 193, 195–9, 264, 272,
duoyuan yiti 296, 321–2, 332, 337. See also under
hegemonic discourses 267, 275 national integration
heteroglossia 75, 275, 344 integration in policy, segregation in reality
hierarchic linguistic structure 48 184
high-context culture and low-context intellectual styles 23, 279–81, 283,
culture 281 285–90, 295–7, 351
high culture 57, 72–3 intellectual superiority 203, 205, 214. See
historical determinism 62 also Han chauvinism
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions 283, 285, intercultural misunderstandings 27
287 intergenerational transmission of culture
homogeneity 7, 68, 71–2, 75 227
household intergroup communication 84
contract responsibility system 71 international communication 253
economy 116 internationalization 337–8
registration system (hukou) 252 Internet 31, 60, 301, 310–1, 313, 318,
HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) 45, 73–4, 351
164, 343–4 Islamic “fanaticism” 228
human capital 27, 218, 239, 243, 253 Islamic schools 228
hybridity 4, 64
jimi system 48
Id al-Fitr (Uy. roza héyt) 228 jinshi 54
identity joint minority-Han schools 135, 138–9
boundary 208
construction 38–9, 264, 275 Kazakh 68–9, 83, 132, 135, 137–8, 141,
imagined empowerment 22, 239, 254, 152, 164, 167–9, 172, 181, 239, 255.
257. See also under empowerment See also Qazaq
impact integration 16, 317 Khitad 65, 76–7
impressions of ethnic minority students Korean-Chinese 23,
324, 326–7 bilingual community 264
400 Index
laborers 262, 273, 275 unification 243–4, 251

teachers 259–60, 264, 266, 269–70, linguistic-cultural anxiety 18, 65, 76
272, 275 linguistic segregation and discrimination
Korean compatriots abroad 262 184
Korean-concentrated communities 263 linking social capital 38
Koreanness 262, 267–70, 274–5 little Korea 270
Kublai Khan 50–1 local
curriculum 13, 21, 78, 297
labor market 41, 193–5, 250, 263, 327, curriculum materials (xiangtu jiaocai)
330, 340 21, 30, 78, 176, 276, 297
Lahu ethnic minority (Lahuzu) 20–1, knowledge 29, 78
187–98, 348 localization of multicultural education
land reform 87, 89 11–2
language low academic performance 328
barrier(s) 90, 174, 182, 248
maintenance 211, 274 mainstream
of instruction 14, 35, 51, 83, 86, 90–1, culture 39, 41, 196–7, 205, 217, 276,
93, 99, 117, 127, 233, 345. See also 322, 326, 328
under medium of instruction education 6, 8, 35
plurality 60, 64 society 16, 19, 21, 102, 105–6, 148,
Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy 101, 162, 190, 193, 195, 207, 217, 243,
134, 305, 347 253, 271–3
learning Manchu
approaches/study processes 281 rulers 52–3
preferences 291 language 52–3
left-essentialist 41 Mandarin see Putonghua
Lesser Bairam 331 Mao Zedong 6, 9, 69, 88, 249, 347
lingua franca 105, 138, 167, 181, 252, Mao Zedong Thought 69, 249
342 marginality 217–9
linguicism 48, 69 marginalization 129, 263–4, 272, 275,
linguistic 300
capital(s) 61, 253, 260 marginal man 217–8
conflicts 185 market forces 7–8, 16, 18, 31, 39, 43, 61,
diversity 46, 55, 63, 166, 276 240, 243
ecological framework 166 Marxist-Leninist 5–6
grammars 274 masculinity versus femininity 284
ideology 167 medium of instruction 14, 35–6, 46, 99,
imperialism 17–8, 45–9, 51, 53, 55–7, 103–4, 119, 134–5, 149, 164, 168,
59–64, 69, 243, 275, 341 172, 183, 206, 241, 246, 253, 261,
nationalism 69, 73 264, 271, 329
preservation 46 melting pot 6
segregation 184 merged school(s) 165, 169–70, 173, 182
Index 401
Ministry of Education 12, 29, 38, 45, Mongol-Han relationship 76

104–5, 142, 165, 233, 245, 251, 301, Mongolian script 50–2
303, 305, 331, 349, 351 monocultural centrism 18
minkaohan 22, 38, 63, 142, 145, 147, monolingual
151–9, 202, 204–5, 207–8, 211, education 46, 164
215–8, 221–3, 230–6, 238, 241, 313, market economy 275
317, 345, 350 moral
minkaomin 22, 38, 142, 164, 169, 202, ideology (sixiang daode) 233
205, 207–8, 215–8, 221–3, 230–3, rituality 73
236, 238, 241, 317, 349–50 mother tongue(s) 46, 83–4, 101–3, 105,
minkaomin/minkaohan labels 221–2 138, 149, 162, 165, 169, 242, 246–8,
minority 251, 255–7
cultures 12, 34, 38, 41, 64, 75, 131, preservation 255
196, 311, 317, 322–4, 326–8, multicultural
331–2, 334–5, 337–8 communication 192
education 1–2, 6–8, 10–1, 16–8, 20–1, education 2–4, 8–13, 17, 20, 22–3, 28,
23–4, 33–4, 41–2, 69, 81, 84, 87, 30, 32–4, 36, 40–3, 45, 65, 78–9,
92–5, 132, 134, 138–9, 141–4, 151, 187, 190, 195, 251, 259, 264,
277, 279, 299–301, 304, 306, 274–5, 279–81, 293, 295–7, 308,
308–9, 311, 314, 317, 347, 351–2 341, 347, 351
educational elite group 201, 348 integration education theory 10, 195
educational preferences 301, 316 masquerade 317
school(s) 2, 7, 45, 134–6, 138–9, multiculturalism 2–4, 8, 11, 14, 16–7,
146–7, 149, 164–6, 169–70, 182, 21, 28–9, 31–5, 41, 43, 56, 63–5,
214 170, 184, 240, 259, 262, 276, 279,
students 1–2, 7–8, 14, 21–3, 35–8, 317, 322, 337. See also duoyuan yiti;
84–5, 102–6, 135–9, 141–2, pluralism
144–51, 164–6, 168–70, 190–3, multilingual
197, 221, 239–42, 245–9, 251, competency 239, 242
253, 255–6, 288, 294, 302, 304–9, language policies 167
313, 321–40, 346 society 45, 62, 166
minzu teaching 45, 63
categories 14–5, 23 multilingualism 18, 55, 170, 259, 262
identification project 67 275, 351
identity 14–5, 23, 224, 299, 315, 328 multi-minzu education 2, 5, 13
university 30, 221, 246 multiple origins, one body 9. See also
Central Minzu University (Zhongyang duoyuan yiti
minzu daxue) 20, 305, 308, 341 multiplicity and unity 184. See also
model minority 22–3, 39–40, 260–1, duoyuan yiti
267–9, 275 museum-style “multi-minzu-ism” 317
Mongols 5, 21, 36, 38, 48, 51, 71, 75–8, Muslim students 210, 229, 331, 333
83, 106, 133, 140, 240, 245–50, 253
402 Index
Nakchu 19, 109–15, 117, 119, 122–5, non-minzu universities 332, 334–5
346 Nurhaci 52–3
national
culture(s) 10, 12, 213, 304 official
curriculum 13, 78 language(s) 51–3, 57, 61, 72, 105, 272
development 43, 108, 116–7 state discourse 22
ideology 39 teaching language 45
in form, socialist in content 68 one country, two systems 29
integration 1, 9, 18, 27–8, 31–2, 36, one-directional integration 174
76, 106–7, 151, 162, 166, 170, online
182, 257, 261, 301, 339, 341. See discourse 310, 313
also under integration identity 23
language 8, 54–5, 57, 105, 273, 344
minorities 45, 66–71, 73–5, 78, 343 parallel schooling system 106, 148
question (minzu wenti) 6, 67, 304 Party-state 1, 7, 16, 162, 205, 219, 225,
self-determination 3, 6 299–301, 304–5, 310–1, 316, 318–9
stability 16 patriotism 29, 176
nationalism 68–9, 72–3, 316, 319 People’s Political Consultative Conference
Han online nationalism 318–9 89, 304, 343
minority nationalism 64 People’s Republic of China 1, 4, 42, 69,
Nationalist Party (Guomindang) 85 77, 83, 131, 162–3, 225–6, 321, 330,
national unity educational materials 332, 336, 342
(minzu tuanjie jiaocai) 30 performative identity 267, 275, 338
nation-building 75, 78, 106, 237 periphery 30, 45, 49, 55–6, 58, 105, 271
native language(s) 36, 38–9, 68, 74, 52, personality
99, 134–8, 147, 149, 161, 163–4, traits 290–3
190, 246, 254, 257 type 281–2
native-language teaching 134 pluralism 1, 2, 8, 12–3, 15–6, 18, 23–4,
neoliberal 29–33, 36, 41–3, 76, 195, 275, 296,
market mechanisms 240 300, 317–8. See also multiculturalism
market reforms 22, 252 pluralistic
Ngari 19, 109–10, 112–6, 346 framework 259
nine-year compulsory education 94, language policies 35
113–4, 120, 122, 189, 192, 251 unity 9, 238, 341
nomadic plurality within unity 29, 240. See also
communities 19, 107–8, 115, 128 duoyuan yiti
life 109, 116–7, 122, 126, 128 plural monoculturalism 13–4, 17, 31, 33,
regions 7, 19, 107–29, 346 43, 276
nomenclatural political
archaeology 65, 344–5 autonomy 56, 67–8
references 76 independence 46
non-indigenous education 107 politics of recognition 3
Index 403
polity 58, 73 policy (zongjiao zhengce) 226, 229

polyethnic state 66 retaining teachers 125
polysemy 18, 65, 75 reverse discrimination (fanxiang qishi)
popularizing basic education 19, 110, 142, 307
128, 346
power distance 283–4, 289 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 65, 344
PRC Constitution 307, 311 school
preferential policies 67–8, 132, 134, access 34–5, 109, 113, 115, 128
139, 141–2, 169, 197, 204, 214, 269, access rates 35, 109
299–300, 308, 328, 330, 335 school-based curriculum 13, 29, 128
preparatory courses (yukeban) 164 secular authority 57
preschool education 113–4, 123 sedentarization 108, 115, 121, 125
psychology 188, 281, 291–2, 295 segregation 92, 106, 139, 181–2, 184,
Putonghua (Mandarin) 8–9, 15, 18–9, 317
21–2, 45–6, 53, 55, 59–64, 83–95, self-identification 215, 218, 260, 268–9
97, 99–104, 134–8, 141–3, 145–9, sense of superiority 204, 208–9, 216
153–9, 161–2, 164–8, 172–3, 176, separate schooling 168, 181
180–1, 190, 205, 221, 233, 248, separatism 64, 67, 70, 74, 322, 343
251–2, 262–4, 272, 275, 321, 329, Sinicization 240. See also assimilation
345, 350 six-year compulsory education 114,
immersion 165 120–1, 124
teaching 85, 87, 92, 99, 101–2, 136, social
138 capital 32, 36–8, 104, 206
cohesion 27, 216
Qazaq 168. See also Kazakh dislocation 29, 217
qualitative research method 287, 323 isolation 16, 339
quality education 18, 20, 149, 299, 336 practice(s) 37–8, 224, 260, 344–5
quantitative fieldwork 36 solidarity 244
quotidian identity 22 stability 8, 46, 226, 301
tension 185
Ramadan 21–2, 210, 221–3, 228–33, socialism 56, 233, 348
338, 349 socialist culture of equality 64
recitation of the scriptures 288 soft power 17, 31, 57, 62, 262
reflectivity-impulsivity 281–2 solidarist approach to human identity 15
regional Soviet Union (USSR) 42, 68
ethnic autonomy 67, 101, 131, 134, Stalin’s theory of ethnic identification
163, 305, 347. See also autono- 225
mous regions State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC)
identities 224 12–3, 15, 38, 245, 301
religiosity 21, 210, 217, 228–9 Structural-Functional Model 193
religious structural linguistic inequality 243
extremism (jiduan zhuyi) 228 structured immersion 165
404 Index
Sun Yat-sen 6 Tujia 54–5, 301–2, 324

suzhi (literally “quality”) 207, 212, 306, tusi 47–8, 52
310, 352 Two Basics (literacy and basic education)
symbolic 123
capital 183, 247
value 260, 262 uncertainty avoidance 283–4
unity and diversity 6, 16–7
teacher training 20, 141, 173, 181, 338 unity in diversity 25, 41, 341. See also
teaching duoyuan yiti
language 45, 91, 93–4, 97, 101–3, 106, university administrators 24, 321–2,
135–6, 144–5, 190, 194, 259, 347. 324–6, 328, 330–1, 333, 335–6
See also under medium of instruc- university entrance exam (gaokao) 7, 23,
tion; language of instruction 137, 221, 299–300, 302–16, 328
mode(s) 100–2, 138, 144–5, 147–8 upward social mobility 162, 219
points 113, 120–1 urban ethnic enclaves 30
styles 3, 280, 289, 293–6, 362, 381 Uyghur(s)
Technological-Functional Theory 193 as 13.5 indigenous ethnic group 216
Teng Xing 10, 12, 20, 176, 190, 195, 308 as fifteenth ethnic group 216–7
terrorism (kongbu zhuyi) 228 as fourteenth indigenous ethnic group
tertiary institutions 142, 210, 295, 302, 216
322, 324, 328 as thirteenth ethnic group 216
Three Guarantees 93, 121, 125 identity 202, 209, 211, 217, 219,
Tibetan 222–3, 226, 229, 237–8
Buddhism 62, 118 identity maintenance 202
Buddhist scripture 86 thieves (weizu xiaotou) 207
language 18–9, 33, 35–6, 46, 48, 62, Uyghur-ness 209, 211, 217, 219, 222,
85–94, 97, 99–102, 346 237
nomads 19, 107–9, 129 Uyghur-Han interethnic relations 202
students 37, 88, 91–2, 101–5, 287–9,
294, 331, 342, 345 vernacular writing (baihuawen) 55
Tibetan-language textbooks 86 vocational education 37, 113–4, 123,
Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) 56, 126, 129
84, 129, 331, 343 voluntary linguistic conversion 53
Tibet Working Committee 86–7
Tongzhi (emperor) 53 Western
top-down and outside-in strategy 213 liberalism 3–5, 13, 19
topolects 15 political context 12
translingualism 275 scholarship 17
trilingual education (sanyu jiaoxue) 2, 20, Western-style multiculturalism 4, 11
161, 165, 170–1, 180, 182–4, 240, work units (danwei) 212
242, 245, 248–9, 253–5, 347
Tubo Kingdom 85
Index 405
Xia (Chinese, central, civility, orthodoxy) Yi minority 33, 35

5, 76 Yi (non-Chinese, peripheral, barbaric,
xiangtu jiaocai movement 30, 78, 176, heterodoxy) 5
276, 297. See also under local curricu-
lum materials zero-sum conception of identity 28
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Zhongguo 5, 18, 66, 75–6, 177, 268, 299,
(XUAR) 19–20, 66, 74, 102, 108, 304, 341, 345
131–59, 161–85, 202, 206, 221, 223, Zhonghua 5, 10, 18, 29, 65, 76–7, 195,
228–9, 232–3, 235, 238, 244, 248, 226, 238, 240, 259, 303–4, 316, 341
331, 346–7 Zhonghua minzu 5, 10, 29, 65, 77, 195,
Xinjiangban (Xinjiang classes) 21, 37, 226, 238, 240, 259, 303, 341. See also
141, 179, 201–3, 205–19, 231, 234, Chinese nation
330, 348–50. See also boarding zigzag development 109
schools; dislocated schools

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Minority Education in China

Balancing Unity and Diversity in an Era of Critical Pluralism

Series editors: Gerard A. Postiglione and Wing-wah Law

Other titles in the series:

Balancing Unity and Diversity in an Era of Critical

Edited by James Leibold and Chen Yangbin

© Hong Kong University Press 2014

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

List of Contributors vii

Introduction: Minority Education in China: Balancing Unity and 1

Part I Diversity in Unity or Unity in Diversity

Part II Minority Education on the Frontier: Language and Identity

6. The Practice of Ethnic Policy in Education: Xinjiang’s Bilingual 131

Part III Educational Integration in China Proper: Pathways and Barriers

Part IV Styles, Stereotypes, and Preferences: Hurdles for Minority

Chen Yangbin is Lecturer in the School of Humanities at La Trobe University

Gao Fang is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Education

works. She specializes in sociology of education as well as Chinese as a second

Timothy Grose is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Central Eurasian

He Baogang is Professor and Chair in International Studies at Deakin University

James Leibold is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Asian Studies at La Trobe

Li Xiaoliang is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Education at the University

Ma Rong is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Institute of Sociology

Naran Bilik is Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean at the Fudan

Gerard Postiglione is Professor and Head of the Division of Policy,

Teng Xing is Professor of Educational Anthropology at Minzu University of

Tsamla is Research Fellow in the Institute of Contemporary Tibetan Studies

Linda Tsung is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Chinese

multilingualism, and multicultural education in Australia and China, teaching

Yang Qixue is a graduate student at Minzu University of China and is currently

Yu Haibo is Associate Research Fellow at the National Academy of Education

Li-fang Zhang is Professor of Psychology and Education in the Faculty of

Zhao Zhenzhou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at

Zuliyati Simayi is Associate Professor in the School of Political and Public

5.2 Number of counties by prefecture that popularized six-year 114

Migration within and across nation-states is a worldwide phenomenon. The

This informative, timely, and copiously researched book is an important con-

Humanities and Creative Arts Programme funding scheme); the Faculty of

James Leibold, Beijing

James Leibold and Chen Yangbin

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) promotes itself as a harmonious, stable

Multicultural Education: Western Origins, Global Implications?

Despite some recent interest among Chinese scholars, multicultural education

Multi-Minzu Education: Confucian Assumptions, Marxist

China’s past is a complex patchwork of different philosophical and religious

for promoting and implementing minority education; second, there is a range of

Debating and Defining Minority Education in the PRC

Not surprisingly, Chinese educators and academics offered a range of theoretical

integrated into a single Chinese nation/race (Zhonghua minzu 中華民族). For

That said there is also an interesting spatial pattern to the intellectual

education in China. The authors state that multicultural education is a discourse

Research Network 2001; State Ethnic Affairs Commission of PRC 2008). As

Balancing Diversity with Unity: The Dangers of Plural

As should be clear now, multicultural education is a contested philosophy of

of a “dual structure” (eryuan jiegou 二元結構) that creates separate institutional

Quotidian life is full of cultural and ethnic diversity in China: the

In contrast to previous scholarship, which has explored the pedagogical and

He Baogang stakes out a normative claim for multilingualism, language is but

with the rudiments of a modern education—fluency in Putonghua, basic aca-

Diversity in Unity or Unity in Diversity

academia agree that education in a multiethnic society has a major responsibil-

Multiculturalism, Cultural Assimilation, and Education