Making Tibetans in China

Tibet is required by China to have an education system that popularizes basic education, and also socializes Chinese citizens into a political discourse consonant with the state program to build a harmonious society (Wang & Lou, 2007; Wu, 1995, 1999). The extent to which this so-called civilizing mission occurs is reflected in enrolment rates, school curriculum, the medium of instruction, and preferential treatment policies. Yet, the success or failure of this major effort hinges to a great extent upon how much and how many Tibetan households become persuaded by the logic of modern state schooling and the value of schools for survival within an expansive market economy (Postiglione, Jiao, & Gyatso, 2006). New patterns of population mobility, increased flows of information from outside Tibet, and rapid economic change have had a profound effect on the transmission and replication of traditional culture. Views differ about the way this transmission process has been managed and directed (Dorjee & Giles, 2005; Sautman & Dreyer, 2005). Nevertheless, the expansion of educational opportunities has made Tibetans more like Chinese, though no less Tibetan, as ethnic identities are remodeled by state schooling and responded to by local communities. Regardless of the cultural transformations taking place in Tibet, the analysis of the education system, policies, programs, problems, and practices has to be based on the realities of students, households, schools, teachers, and communities. This chapter discusses several questions: How are Tibetans being educated? What and how do Tibetans learn in China’s schools? How do nomadic Tibetan communities adapt to state schools? How do schools remake Tibetans? What are the views of elite students about their education? This chapter focuses on the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), where Tibetans constitute virtually all of the rural and nomadic population. ¹ It provides a brief background review of the policies that shape education in the TAR, and results of research on the neidi or dislocated secondary schools for Tibetans in urban Chinese cities. It argues that, while enrollment rates continue to rise, most schooling produces mixed results, in terms of providing a quality learning environment that can propel academic achievement to a level comparable with the national average, as well as foster a harmonious multiculturalism.