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Pains and Gains of Ethnic Multilingual Learners in China

An Ethnographic Case Study

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

  • Serves a sound reference for the stakeholders as policy makers and general mass as policy takers to review their particular situations and take corresponsive actions to address the challenges
  • A good reader for the upper-level undergraduate or post-graduate who major in educational anthropology, educational sociology, ethnic and racial studies
  • Uses as reading materials for the courses or modules on ethnic minority educational policies in China
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Multilingual Education (MULT, volume 17)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

This book introduces an ethnographic case study of two English majors of ethnic minority at YUN, a local university of nationalities in southwest China. Drawing on the theories of post-structuralism and critical multiculturalism, this book mainly studies two female multilingual individuals in Yunnan, China. By scrutinizing university policies, curriculum, personal learning histories, and by discussing the unequal power relationship between national policies, school curricula, and ethnic multilingual learners,this book provides information at a micro-level on how the two ethnic minority students, who have acquired three languages (L1-native, L2-Mandarin Chinese, and L3-English), successfully navigate the Chinese higher education system as multilingual learners despite various tensions, difficulties, and challenges. How these students construct their multiple identities as well as significant factors affecting such identity construction is also discussed. This book will contribute to thescholarship of policy and practice in ethnic multilingual education in China by addressing the challenges for tertiary institutions and ethnic multilingual learners. The author also points out that multiculturalism as a discourse of education might help ease the tension of being an ethnic minority and a Chinese national, and reduce the danger of being assimilated or being marginalized.      



Reviews

“This detailed and illuminating ethnography of two students at the Yunnan University of the Nationalities examines the obstacles, identity tensions, and learning challenges that they face when in contact with national and university-level norms and policies. … Wang sheds much-needed light on the educational struggles of Chinese ‘ethnic multilingual learners’, with the hope of informing future policy direction and further research.” (Nina Cross, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, March, 2019)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Sch of Foreign Languages, Yunnan University, City, China

    Ge Wang

About the author

Dr. Ge Wang is the professor of applied linguistics at School of Foreign Languages, Yunnan University, China. He has been engaged in English teaching and research in multilingual education over 20 years. He obtained his PhD in English Language Education from the University of Hong Kong and was the 2014-2015 Sino-American Fulbright research visiting scholar at Graduate School of Education, the University of Pennsylvania. His research interest is in applied linguistics, bi/trilingual education, intercultural communication and educational anthropology. His major publications can be found in the internationally refereed journals such as The Journal of Asia TEFL, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (SSCI ), The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher (SSCI ) and book chapters published by TESOL, Routledge and John Benjamins. 
He is currently the deputy secretary of Yunnan Foreign Language Education Association (YFLEA) and Vice director of International Association of Multilingual Education, Yunnan Branch (IAME Yunnan Branch).  

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Pains and Gains of Ethnic Multilingual Learners in China

  • Book Subtitle: An Ethnographic Case Study

  • Authors: Ge Wang

  • Series Title: Multilingual Education

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0661-6

  • Publisher: Springer Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-10-0659-3Published: 26 April 2016

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-10-9222-0Published: 22 April 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-10-0661-6Published: 18 April 2016

  • Series ISSN: 2213-3208

  • Series E-ISSN: 2213-3216

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXV, 202

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations, 14 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Language Education, Applied Linguistics, Anthropology

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