Rural–urban divide and identity conflicts of migrant Muslim students in Northwest China

Abstract

A huge flow of internal migrants in China is an indicator of the significant changes in the geographical and cultural patterns brought by China’s recent economic growth. The Hui (10.6 million), as one of the largest ethnic minority groups in China, and the Dongxiang, with almost 100% of them holding the Islamic belief, are migrating from rural areas to urban centers in Northwest China. Analyzing the qualitative data from narrative stories, thematic photos, group discussions, semi-structured interviews, and field observations, this study interprets the cultural experience of rural Muslim migrant students in Chinese public schools and examines their complex and fluid rural–urban identities. This study further discusses the possibilities of including and integrating rural migrant students in cities.

Keywords:

• Rural–urban migration
• identity conflicts
• ethnic migrants
• education
• China

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Professors Kam Wing Chan, Yuan Ren, James A. Banks, Cherry M. Banks, and Geneva Gay for their helpful comments and support. All remaining errors are of course my own.

Notes

1. “Rural” refers to a migrant’s hukou rather than his/her current residential location. Rural migrants in this article refer to the migrants who receive assigned hukou in a rural region. They migrate to the cities but do not have hukou in the host cities.