International Journal of Educational Development 29 (2009) 542

Book review

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International Journal of Educational Development

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Cultural exclusion in China: State Education, Social Mobilityand Cultural Difference, Lin Yi. Routledge, UK (2008). 192 pp.,Hardback, Price: £85, ISBN: 978-0-415-45761.

Poverty and inequality of ethnic minority groups are familiarproblems in many countries including China where 100 millionpeople (about 8.5 percent of the population) are from 55 ethnicgroups with 61 identified languages. Many governments andinternational organisations have promoted education as essentialin reducing poverty and inequality and have some success to showfor it. However, inequalities persist, even when ethnic minoritiesparticipate in education.

This book begins by asking two questions: ‘why do many ethnicminority communities persistently perform poorly in schooling?’and ‘why is it that some minority members cannot achieve socialmobility as much as they should in accordance with theirachievement in education?’ The rest of the book explores thesequestions in the context of China, focusing particularly on therelationship between ethnicity and educational performance. Theauthor argues that failure to achieve the inclusion of ethnicminorities is largely responsible for their poor performance ineducation and the achievement of social mobility, leading in turnto poverty and marginalisation. Just how this cycle comes about isexamined through the author’s focus on socio-economic andcultural processes through an analysis of policy and discourse andethnographic fieldwork with Tibetan and Muslim communities inQinghai and Gansu provinces, northwest China.

This slim but meaty volume consists of six chapters plus apostscript on NGO (non-governmental organisations) activity, sixappendices containing information on the researcher’s approachand instruments, 15 pages of informative footnotes, and abibliography drawing on Chinese and other sources. In theIntroduction (Chapter 1), the author examines the relationshipbetween ethnicity and educational achievement, reviewing con-cepts of inequality, cultural and social capital and social mobility.He argues that the prevalent interpretation of inequality ineconomic terms, especially in China, provides too limited anunderstanding, neglecting the cultural dimension. Chapter 2 (‘Thetrajectories of Chinese culturalism and its educational legacy’)outlines the historical development of Chinese culturalism, itsinstitutionalisation and the modern discourse on culture in Chinatogether with its influence on education. Chapter 3 (‘Ethnicizationthrough schooling’) examines the process though which minoritycultures are interpreted and defined as inferior and less valuablefor the modernisation of China. Education is identified as the‘cultural battlefield’ where power-lines are drawn. In the next twochapters (4 and 5) two cases, Tibetan and Muslim, are presented,giving voice to the evaluations of these minorities of theireducational situation within the wider socio-economic andcultural environment. These two chapters, based on the author’s

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fieldwork research, illuminate the differences between these twominorities in their response to cultural exclusion as well as thecomplexities of relations between them and the Han majority. Inthe final chapter (6, ‘Conclusions’) the author reviews the tensionsbetween economic development, political cohesion and culturaldiversity and the effects of government policy. He argues the casefor a ‘new cultural landscape’, one more inclusive of ethnicminorities and emerging out of a dialogue in public and privaterealms. He concludes with ‘the central question’ needed forconstructing a united multi-ethnic country (tongyi de duominzu

guojia): ‘how does the sovereign reconstruct society with respectto such sensitive issues as the (re)definition of national identity,historical memory of culture, sense of citizenship, and the pursuitof a shared sense of economic well-being?’ (p. 119). The post-script(‘Promoting education by NGOs?’, pp. 120–126) identifies suc-cesses and limitations in the local achievements of NGOs inassisting minority education and suggests that ‘new disjunctures’,unintended, may be one result of their input as well as highlightingthe complexity of finding appropriate solutions.

This book is a welcome addition to the useful Series onComparative Development and Policy in Asia, co-published bythe Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Bristol, andRoutledge. It is a valuable resource for researchers and scholarsas well as being accessible to a more general audience. It makes asignificant contribution to the relatively small literature inEnglish on cultural exclusion in China, providing access toinformation and insights on Chinese culturalism that areotherwise difficult (or impossible) for non-Chinese readers togain. It successfully combines analysis of policy, historicalexplanation and ethnographic data to produce a rich andcomplex picture of the situation and issues. The book is aconversion of the author’s PhD thesis and is a good example ofhow to do this, communicating the ideas and developing theargument clearly, keeping the level of research detail andtechnicality under control, locating the research in a broadercontext, balancing explanation and analysis with original fieldwork and providing enough sources and footnotes to enableother researchers to follow up on aspects that interest them. Itwas overall very readable, though occasional over-long sentences(40–60+ words in length) did require re-reading to check themeaning. However, this small criticism does not detract from thevalue of the book which I highly recommend as a good read andgood resource.

Bernadette RobinsonUNESCO Centre for Comparative Education Research,

University of Nottingham, UK

E-mail address: ttzbr@exmail.nottingham.ac.uk