Gertraude Roth Li
University of Hawaii
Minority Education in China as seen through Xibo Elementary School Texts
35th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, 1992
The paper is based on two Xibo fourth grade elementary school readers and seeks to establish to which degree formal education transmits Xibo culture and traditions.
The research points to a wholesale copying of lessons from Chinese textbooks with very minimal exposure to Xibo values and tradition. A comparison of the 1954 reader with the 1983 reader shows that few significant changes were made. With the Xibo language counting less than 20,000 native speakers and only a few elementary schools teaching Xibo as the first language, formal education education provides Xibo children with little insight into their ethnic identity. If such identity is encouraged, it would need to come through oral transmission by family and friends.
It is likely that formal education of other minorities has been treated similarly by the Chinese educational establishment.