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Muslim Narratives of Schooling, Social Mobility and Cultural Difference: A Case Study in Multi-ethnic Northwest China

Author: Lin Yi
Date: 2005
Size: 28 pages (204 KB)

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Summary

What explains the persistent poor educational performance of China’s Muslim minority populations? This paper from the Japanese Journal of Political Science draws on community level interviews with Muslim communities in the Qinghai-Gansu borderland to analyse the impact of cultural exclusion on ethnic minority educational attitudes and performance. There is a tension between Muslims' desire for full social citizenship in the form of rights to employment and education and the limited social and cultural capital they possess with which to achieve these goals. The party-state needs a more coherent approach to national identity and minority rights, so as not to exacerbate existing tensions between minorities and the wider society.

In China, the preferred path toward high socioeconomic status and financial security is through education. Yet, in terms of school performance, Muslim students tend to have a lower record in academic achievement than students from other ethnic groups, and fewer continue to study at the post-compulsory stage. Illiteracy rates are relatively high, and anecdotal evidence suggests that student drop-out rates may be on the rise. In short, Chinese Muslims possess extremely low educational capital.

The source of this poor performance is multifaceted. Principally, Muslim communities in China feel their desire to achieve social mobility through education is blocked by a larger community that still regards them as ‘familiar strangers’. As a result, a tension emerges between Muslims’ desire for full social citizenship in the form of rights and the limited social capital they possess to achieve this goal. This tension manifests itself most vividly in their relationship with the educational system: 

• Since the social mobility incentive for education appears blocked, Muslims feel education is irrelevant, making them reluctant to send their children to school
• Experiences within government schools reinforce Muslim perceptions of marginalisation and discrimination, further exacerbating the negative impression of education
• Education has become associated with a need to hide or renounce one’s ethno-religious identity, leading many Muslim parents to call for Muslim minority schools

These sentiments reveal an obvious gap between the formal laws and informal public discourse and attitudes toward minorities in China. In spite of its legal commitment to freedom of religion and diverse beliefs, the government discourse is tinged with cultural language and iconography that undermines diversity and inclusion, leaving minorities out of the broad conception of the nation. In reality, the dominance of the Chinese state ensures that political structures will always impose their priority over cultural interests in instances of tension.

This tension reflects an underlying ambiguity in Chinese political philosophy, which provides citizens on the one hand with cultural rights in laws and on the other hand, seeks to control citizens’ exercise of these rights. For Muslims, their struggle lies in negotiating this ambiguity. For the future, some lessons and challenges suggest that unless significant improvements in social and cultural rights are achieved, there is little hope for a more motivated and better educated Muslim minority in China:

• The party-state’s economically-oriented agenda aims to distract attention away from the tension between party ideology and minority ethnic cultures, making progress towards resolving such tensions unlikely
• While the state continues to provide Muslims and other minority groups with tangible material benefits, it still regards them as ‘outsiders’
• Progress for minorities in China depends on the way in which the state chooses to balance majority-led nation-building with the demands for minority rights. So far the emphasis has been on the former to the detriment of the latter.

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Source: Yi L., 2005, 'Muslim Narratives of Schooling, Social Mobility and Cultural Difference: A Case Study in Multi-ethnic Northwest China', Japanese Journal of Political Science, Volume 6, Number 1, pp. 1-28