ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Tibetan students’ efforts to attain social mobility through education were complicated by the Chinese state agenda of integrating them into the Han nation-state. This complication can be understood as a tension between their desire for full social citizenship, in the form of rights to employment, education and opportunities, and the requirement that they also adopt Han cultural citizenship – that they acquire the knowledge and language for ‘belonging’ to mainstream society. However, by focusing on integrating and equipping students to become part of the Han-dominated mainstream, educational policies devalued Tibetan culture and language. This situation prevented Tibetan students from acquiring the kinds of cultural capital that would enable them to ‘progress’, and caused many to become academic underachievers. Meanwhile, those who have managed to stay in ‘mainstream’ are caught in the predicament in which they vainly make an effort to re-establish linkage with their ethnic culture.
