Between Modern Schooling and Cultural Heritage : Education and Ethnicity in Southwest China
(2019)- Abstract
- Since the late 1970s, China has experienced remarkable socioeconomic development. The trend towards marketisation and modernisation overturned culturally-rooted lifestyles, and more and more ethnic minorities in China have started to regard their traditional cultures as irrelevant to their livelihoods and future and chosen to move away from them. This poses a threat to the idea of ethnic diversity within the unity of the Chinese nation state. In response, the Chinese government has implemented a series of strategies to integrate ethnic minority culture into modern schooling to maintain cultural heritage.
The overall aim of the thesis is to contribute to a critical understanding of how ethnic minority culture is integrated into... (More) - Since the late 1970s, China has experienced remarkable socioeconomic development. The trend towards marketisation and modernisation overturned culturally-rooted lifestyles, and more and more ethnic minorities in China have started to regard their traditional cultures as irrelevant to their livelihoods and future and chosen to move away from them. This poses a threat to the idea of ethnic diversity within the unity of the Chinese nation state. In response, the Chinese government has implemented a series of strategies to integrate ethnic minority culture into modern schooling to maintain cultural heritage.
The overall aim of the thesis is to contribute to a critical understanding of how ethnic minority culture is integrated into school practices, inside and outside classrooms; what kinds of challenges in teaching and administration teachers encounter in Chinese ethnic minority regions specifically regarding ethnic Dai and ethnic Tujia; and how pre-service teachers are prepared in present teacher education programmes in ethnic minority areas. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of multicultural education and internal orientalism, this thesis contextualises multicultural education by analysing Chinese acedemic debates on the subject as well as by investigating how political, social and cultural forces influence education for ethnic minorities in Southwest China.
The data for this thesis consists of sampled literature on the topic of “education and ethnicity” in Chinese academia for a literature review, as well as empirical data collected using a qualitative approach, including interviews with school teachers and teacher educators, focus group discussions with school teachers and document analysis of teacher education syllabuses.
The overall findings show that the major insights of international scholarship on multicultural education since 1970 has not significantly informed on ethnic minority education research in China; the manifestations of ethnic minority culture within the school context are superficial and largely in the form of static cultural artefacts; teachers’ practices of integrating cultural content are performed as add-ons; and cultivation of multicultural competence for work in ethnic minority education amongst pre-service teachers is, to a great extent, missing from teacher education programmes. (Less) - Abstract (Swedish)
- Sedan slutet av 1970-talet har Kina upplevt en anmärkningsvärd socioekonomisk utveckling. Tendensen till marknadifiering och modernisering försvagade kulturellt rotade livsstilar och allt fler etniska minoritetsgrupper i Kina har börjat betrakta traditionell kultur som irrelevant för deras försörjning och framtid samt i viss utsträckning också har börjat ta avstånd från dessa. Detta utgör ett hot mot idén om etnisk mångfald inom den kinesiska nationalstatens enhet. Som svar har den kinesiska regeringen genomfört en rad strategiska satsningar för att upprätthålla kulturarvet genom att integrera etnisk minoritetskultur i modern skolutbildning.
Det övergripande målet med avhandlingen är att bidra till en kritisk förståelse av hur... (More) - Sedan slutet av 1970-talet har Kina upplevt en anmärkningsvärd socioekonomisk utveckling. Tendensen till marknadifiering och modernisering försvagade kulturellt rotade livsstilar och allt fler etniska minoritetsgrupper i Kina har börjat betrakta traditionell kultur som irrelevant för deras försörjning och framtid samt i viss utsträckning också har börjat ta avstånd från dessa. Detta utgör ett hot mot idén om etnisk mångfald inom den kinesiska nationalstatens enhet. Som svar har den kinesiska regeringen genomfört en rad strategiska satsningar för att upprätthålla kulturarvet genom att integrera etnisk minoritetskultur i modern skolutbildning.
Det övergripande målet med avhandlingen är att bidra till en kritisk förståelse av hur etnisk minoritetskultur integreras i skolan, inom och utanför klassrummet; vilka sorters utmaningar lärare som verkar i etniska minoritetområden möter i undervisning och administration särskilt bland de etniska minoritetsgrupperna Dai respektiveTujia; och hur lärarstudenter i lärarutbildningen i dessa områden förbereds för arbetet som lärare i dessa regioner. Med utgångspunkt i de teoretiska ramarna för mångkulturell utbildning och intern orientalism kontextualiserar denna avhandling multikulturell utbildning genom att analysera akademiska debatter i Kina om ämnet samt genom att undersöka hur politiska, sociala och kulturella krafter påverkar utbildningen för etniska minoriteter i sydvästra Kina.
Empirin för avhandlingen består dels av ett urval akademisk kinesisk litteratur om ämnet "utbildning och etnicitet" för en litteraturöversikt och dels av empiriska data som samlats in med hjälp av ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt, bland annat intervjuer med skollärare och lärarutbildare, fokusgruppsdiskussioner med skollärare och dokumentanalys av lärarutbildningsplaner.
Den övergripande resultatbilden ger vid handen: att forskningsrönen från den internationella forskningen om mångkulturell utbildning som pågått sedan 1970 inte har fått någon större inverkan på forskningen kring utbildning och etniska minoriteter i Kina, att inkluderingen av etnisk minoritetskultur i skolutbildningen är ytlig och i huvudsak endast visar sig i uppvisning av statiska kulturartefakter; att lärarnas arbete med att integrera mångkulturellt innehåll utförs som tillägg till den ordinarie undervisningen; och att utvecklingen av mångkulturell kompetens bland lärarstudenterna för arbete med undervisning av elever från etniska minoritetsgrupper i stora drag saknas i lärarutbildningar. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/49b70798-70b1-4faa-bc42-f021e4020a7e
- author
- Wang, Wei LU
- supervisor
-
- Barbara Schulte LU
- Glen Helmstad LU
- opponent
-
- Professor Halskov Hansen, Mette, Oslo University, Norway
- organization
- alternative title
- Mellan modern skolundervisning och kulturarv : Utbildning och etnicitet i sydvästra Kina
- publishing date
- 2019-02-06
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Modern schooling, Cultural heritage, Ethnic minority education, Teacher, Teacher education, Teacher educator, Multicultural education, Internal Orientalism, Xishuangbanna (西双版纳), Qianjiang (黔江), Dai (傣族), Tujia (土家族), China
- pages
- 134 pages
- publisher
- Lund University
- defense location
- Palaestra, Tegnersplatsen, Lund
- defense date
- 2019-03-12 13:15:00
- ISBN
- 978-91-7895-000-3
- 978-91-7753-997-1
- project
- Education and Ethnicity in China: Academic debate, Teacher Training and Local Schooling Practices
- Nation state versus ethnicity: educating ethnic minorities in South-West China
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 49b70798-70b1-4faa-bc42-f021e4020a7e
- date added to LUP
- 2019-02-11 22:38:47
- date last changed
- 2019-09-08 14:37:14
@phdthesis{49b70798-70b1-4faa-bc42-f021e4020a7e, abstract = {{Since the late 1970s, China has experienced remarkable socioeconomic development. The trend towards marketisation and modernisation overturned culturally-rooted lifestyles, and more and more ethnic minorities in China have started to regard their traditional cultures as irrelevant to their livelihoods and future and chosen to move away from them. This poses a threat to the idea of ethnic diversity within the unity of the Chinese nation state. In response, the Chinese government has implemented a series of strategies to integrate ethnic minority culture into modern schooling to maintain cultural heritage.<br/> The overall aim of the thesis is to contribute to a critical understanding of how ethnic minority culture is integrated into school practices, inside and outside classrooms; what kinds of challenges in teaching and administration teachers encounter in Chinese ethnic minority regions specifically regarding ethnic Dai and ethnic Tujia; and how pre-service teachers are prepared in present teacher education programmes in ethnic minority areas. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of multicultural education and internal orientalism, this thesis contextualises multicultural education by analysing Chinese acedemic debates on the subject as well as by investigating how political, social and cultural forces influence education for ethnic minorities in Southwest China.<br/> The data for this thesis consists of sampled literature on the topic of “education and ethnicity” in Chinese academia for a literature review, as well as empirical data collected using a qualitative approach, including interviews with school teachers and teacher educators, focus group discussions with school teachers and document analysis of teacher education syllabuses. <br/> The overall findings show that the major insights of international scholarship on multicultural education since 1970 has not significantly informed on ethnic minority education research in China; the manifestations of ethnic minority culture within the school context are superficial and largely in the form of static cultural artefacts; teachers’ practices of integrating cultural content are performed as add-ons; and cultivation of multicultural competence for work in ethnic minority education amongst pre-service teachers is, to a great extent, missing from teacher education programmes.}}, author = {{Wang, Wei}}, isbn = {{978-91-7895-000-3}}, keywords = {{Modern schooling; Cultural heritage; Ethnic minority education; Teacher; Teacher education; Teacher educator; Multicultural education; Internal Orientalism; Xishuangbanna (西双版纳); Qianjiang (黔江); Dai (傣族); Tujia (土家族); China}}, language = {{eng}}, month = {{02}}, publisher = {{Lund University}}, school = {{Lund University}}, title = {{Between Modern Schooling and Cultural Heritage : Education and Ethnicity in Southwest China}}, url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/57855588/Wei_Wang_Kappan.pdf}}, year = {{2019}}, }