Celebrating culture and neglecting language: representation of ethnic minorities in Chinese primary school textbooks (1976–2021)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study draws on data collected from Chinese language textbooks to investigate the ways in which ethnic minority cultures and languages are represented in primary school textbooks in China. Drawing on the methods of thematic and comparative analysis, we specifically analyse how the representation of ethnic minorities in Chinese textbooks has changed across different periods in history. The analysis reveals that the representation of ethnic minority cultures and languages is largely limited to the contributions approach and additive approach to multicultural curriculum development. The findings show a largely selective, traditional, and stereotypical representation of ethnic minority cultures and languages in school textbooks, which focus primarily on cultures from representative ethnic groups. Although an accurate and equitable representation of ethnic minorities is still mostly lacking in Chinese language textbooks, a multicultural approach to ethnic diversity has been gaining ground over the past four decades. Interestingly, increasing interest in a multicultural approach has been accompanied by decreasing tolerance towards ethnic multilingualism in textbooks over the past four decades. Such observable trends towards monolingualism and multiculturalism in the representation of ethnic and linguistic diversity in textbooks echo the continuous changes in national education policy.