ABSTRACT
Pluralism is helpful to understand the background themes that guide ideology about ethnic minorities in China. By considering these themes, this chapter reviews the basic situation and policies, research literature, case studies, and debates about China's ethnic minority education. While China as a nation reacts to the countervailing demands of internationalism, patriotism, and communalism, its education system has to respond to a shifting market of demands. Research literature in English on ethnic minority education access and underachievement in China has moved ahead rapidly, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. The focus has been on multiple factors, including language and religion, cultural transmission and household finance, migration, social stratification, and employment. Formal education can become an instrument to broaden cultural sophistication beyond the ethnic community or it can radically intensify ethnic identities and inequalities in cultural capital.
