Becoming Uyghur Elites: How Uyghur Women in a Mainstream Chinese University Negotiate Their Gendered Identities

ABSTRACT

Multilingual learners confront challenges not only in mastering new languages but also in forming new identities. Guided by the investment model, we traced the learning of Chinese and English of two Uyghur women who attended a coastal Chinese university and investigated how they navigated the Chinese mainstream education system to university level. Findings of this ethnographic work revealed that moving from their less developed hometown to a major city, the participants expanded and enriched their repertoire of symbolic and material resources on which they could rely to effect more powerful social memberships and negotiate their educated Uyghur identities. Their Chinese and English language learning journey and the educational experiences in the host community also changed how Uyghur women perceive their future possibilities. Their struggles and agency in their journey were also highlighted.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic minorities
• gendered identity
• language policy
• multilingual education

Acknowledgment

This study was supported by Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of China (No. 19BYY037).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Putonghua is the oral form of Mandarin Chinese.

2. Baidu, like Google, is a searching engine, enjoying the largest Chinese netizen population.

3. WeChat is the most widely used instant messaging and networking mobile application in China.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yaqiong Cui

Yaqiong Cui is a lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her research interests include multilingual education, identity research, and the teaching and research of EAP.

Peter I. De Costa

Peter I. De Costa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages & Cultures and the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. He is the co-editor of TESOL Quarterly and the second Vice-President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics.