Bilingual education for a harmonious multiculturalism: the importance of policy discourse for students of ethnic minority groups in China

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to understand why the educational experiences of ethnic minority Chinese lag behind the educational experiences of Han Chinese through the lens of multiculturalism education. We conduct a critical discourse analysis of educational laws and policies from 1982 to 2012 to trace how multicultural education is articulated in Chinese national policies. We find government support for bilingual education and linguistic diversity, but a patriarchal relationship exists between students from both Han and ethnic minority backgrounds. Moreover, a disconnect exists between encouraging languages of ethnic minority groups and an absence of teacher knowledge and awareness of the cultures of ethnic minority groups. In order to address the educational gap between Han and ethnic minority groups, we argue for the creation of a transformative, two-way conduit of multiculturalism, both theoretically and pedagogically, that empowers and actively engages students from ethnic minority groups, their Han counterparts, and bilingual teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic minority
• critical discourse analysis
• policy
• bilingual education
• multiculturalism
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. China has designated five autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures, and a number of autonomous counties in the west, south, and northeast of China (State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 2017).

2. Ethnic minorities are not homogeneous in terms of educational opportunities in China. Although most ethnic groups are considered disadvantaged, several groups such as Koreans and Mongolians have similar or higher numbers of students who are secondary-school-educated or college-educated compared to Han students (Zhou, 2001).

3. Policy documents addressing postsecondary education are excluded from our analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peggy A. Kong

Peggy A. Kong is an assistant professor of Comparative and International Education at Lehigh University. Her research focuses on family-school relationships, gender issues, and immigrant and ethnic minorities in China and in the United States. She has conducted research on parental involvement and educational attainment in rural China, gender and ethnic disparities in education, and student engagement in schooling. She teaches graduate courses in comparative and international education, globalization and education, and research methods.

Xiaoran Yu

Xiaoran Yu is a Ph.D. student in the Comparative and International Education Program at Lehigh University. She received her Master’s degree in Linguistics from the University of Virginia. At Lehigh, Xiaoran was a Thomas/Brucker endowed minority doctoral scholar. Her research interests include parental engagement in children’s education, education for ethnic minorities and rural children in China, discourse analysis, social and cultural capital of migrant and immigrant families and its relationship with student academic achievement.