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.