Religious Identity and Cultural Refashioning: Educational Constraints for Migrant Muslim Hui University Students in China

Abstract

This study discusses the educational constraints facing Muslim Hui students and the measures that should be pondered by the Chinese government to address these constraints. Three key research questions are addressed: (1) How does the mainstream Han, Confucian, or the state ideology interact with Hui students’ culture? (2) In what ways do ethnic boundaries and educational uniformity affect the engagement of ethnic minorities in education as well as the larger society? (3) What are the major educational constraints faced by Hui migrant students of Muslim background? Through the mixed-methods research design, I find that the yearning of Muslim Hui Chinese students to achieve educational success and social mobility is limited by social, cultural, and educational factors that regard them as the “other”; they still face issues of marginalization—educationally, socially, and culturally—that delay them from achieving higher educational success.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This paper is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, No. 2009JJ075.

Notes

1. ¹There are no official statistics concerning the academic achievement of students along ethnicity lines, so I had to resort to interviewing the students themselves and their teachers to gather the data for sample analysis.

2. ²Refer to Colin Mackerras, “Religion and Education of China’s Minorities,” in Postiglione (Ed.) China’s Ethnic Minority Education: Culture, Schooling and Development (New York, NY: Falmer Press, 1999): 32–33.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dong Zhao

Dr. Dong Zhao is currently an Associate Professor in the School of English and International Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University in China. His research areas include religion and society, religion and education, religion and literature, Chinese religions, and interreligious dialogues.