Collective Belonging or Individual Calling: Language and Ethnic Identity of Minorities in China

Minority education in contemporary China consists of two systems: a bilingual education system that greatly emphasizes the ethnic minority language, and a monolingual education system with instruction only in the Chinese language. These two different language-based programs have a significant influence on self-identity. This article, which is based on 57 in-depth interviews with young Mongols, Tibetans, and Uyghurs, examines the distinct conceptions of ethnicity held by ethnic-language-educated and Chinese-language-educated minorities and their distinct paths of ethnic identity formation. Language is central to the former group’s self-identity, which is nurtured in community life and conferred by their ancestors. They revere tradition and have moral pride in preserving their ethnic culture. In contrast, the ethnic minorities educated in Chinese often view ethnicity as an individual calling. Their ethnic consciousness is enhanced through reflective learning, not communal participation. Education experiences, conditioned by social factors, result in the acquisition of different social and cultural capitals and largely explain this divergence. This study offers a reflection on the limitations of the two dominant paradigms—namely, cultural assimilation and linguistic nativism—that shape the study of language, education, and ethnic identity formation.