ABSTRACT
Enrollment is one of the key issues in ethnic education in China, and has received increasing attention in recent years. To promote enrollment requires the government to develop an approach to understanding parents’ decision not to enroll their children. Modern economists are used to a human capital approach in their analysis of investment in education. Political scientists, in contrast, are interested in the state’s capacity to penetrate society or mobilize citizens’ loyalty through education. In light of a recent poor enrollment record in some of the ethnic minority areas, the human capital approach can explain the cost–benefit reasons why the local people fail to respond to educational opportunities. 1 Statist analysis is useful in pointing out the lack of effective incentives that the state can provide in its enrolling drive. 2
