The Research On The Minority Textbook Policies Of China In The Last Century

Since ancient times, many ethnic groups have lived together on the vast land of China. "Pluralistic integration" is the characteristic of the national pattern, which is shaped gradually through thousands of years of evolution by these ethnic groups. On "the land under heaven" built by Confucian culture, these ethnic groups of different cultures and mentalities had been colliding with and tolerating each other under the traditional order of "Huaxia-Siyi". In the late Qing Dynasty and early period of Republic of China, the culturism of "the land under heaven" built by Confucian ethical value system gradually dismantled under the shock of western nationalist trend of "one nation, one country". Confucian civilization was no longer the spirit height for these ethnic groups. The cultural centripetal force shaped by the ideas of "great unity" and "orthodox" disappeared instantly. In a new ethnic nation, how to construct "political recognition" and "cultural recognition" had become one of the most imperative issues for modern Chinese. Ethnic minority textbooks were born as a tool for "recognition" at the moment. From the late Qing Dynasty and Republic of China, to the new China, the central governments had employed series of administrative policies to promote the integration of ethnic textbook cultures and the exerting of political integration function. Some of the policies enlightened ethnic minority groups and played an important role in integrating. Some, however, were counterproductive, making the bad ethnic relations even worse. It is the issue this research tries to address what administrative policies the government should make to let the small ethnic textbook play the biggest role."In the mirror of history, we can see the reason behind for the ups and downs of a country". Giving up the grand theories of ethnic integration and state building, the writer has clarified the one-hundred-year history of the development of ethnic minority textbook policies by looking up dusty documents and books and comparatively studying about 800 ethnic textbooks from late Qing Dynasty to the new China. This research constructs the framework of research process with the history as the vertical axis and the analysis of public policy (Why the government did that? What did the government do? What influence did that cause?) as the horizontal axis. The research investigates, from the perspective of ethnology of pedagogy, the goals, processes, and contents of these governments’ethnic textbook policies formulated in certain social and political, cultural, and educational backgrounds. It focuses on the analysis of textbook’s edition policy, printing policy, and financial policy. This article summarizes the characteristics of these ethnic textbook policies in different periods and remarks on their functional influence on political and cultural integration. On the basis of the one-hundred-year long development history of ethnic minority textbook policies and the research on the textbooks themselves, and from the perspective of modern public policy theory and textbook theory research, this article has come up with the following ideas.First, with regard to the goals of these policies, the subjective value orientation of the one-hundred-year ethnic textbook policies has two tendencies of "liberalism" and "communitarianism". The two tendencies were once dominant respectively during different historical periods. This caused the breaking of ethnic textbook policies in the one-hundred-year long policy practice, thus objectively affected the function exertion of the ethnic textbooks. Moreover, the objective environment for the development of policy, especially pressure from domestic and foreign political environment, controlled the benefit distribution in ethnic textbook policy. When the country was facing mounting pressure from the foreign aggressive forces and domestic separatist forces, the tendency that the government intended to strengthen its ruling authority severely undermined ethnic textbooks’ "specialized" development path. With stable political situation and loose outside and inside environment, the government was able to distribute ethnic culture benefits from a more fair and square angle when formulating ethnic textbook policies. Therefore, in a national pattern of pluralistic integration, the goal of policy should be oriented to the subjective value of "harmony in diversity" and make the various ethnic cultures blossom under the basis of a common Chinese culture. Policy makers should respond to the outside pressure from the perspective of the long-term development of Chinese ethnic groups and coordinate the interest appeal in the ethnic textbook policies.Second, with regard to the structure and content of the policies, after the one-hundred-year development, ethnic textbooks have built a stable policy structure in the processes of editing, publishing, and issuing. In particular with the printing and fund supporting, almost all the governments were able to formulate proactive supporting polices, which are praiseworthy. Plentiful experiences have been accumulated concerning the policy contents. At the same time, there are some problems. For instance, the form and meaning of policy making tend to be "simplified"; the validation policies are just copy of Chinese textbooks with no validation criteria meeting with the characteristics of ethnic textbooks. Therefore, considering the diversity of ethnic minority groups, diversified edition systems must be formulated to change the compiling ways of "translating" and "translating and editing" in the past. Self editing and validating system should be established based on the theory research achievements of ethnic textbooks. Meanwhile, the printing, issuing and funding policies of ethnic textbooks should be further improved and appropriated fund and special printing and issuing system should be established.Third, with regard to policy functions, the one-hundred-year ethnic textbooks have seen the transforming of ethnic minority education from traditional religious education to modern education, laying the physical foundation for ethnic education modernization. These textbooks have shaped Chinese ethnic groups’"collective memory" in ways of policy and textbooks, consolidating the ethnic recognition of Chinese ethnic groups, which has been constantly built by Chinese from Mr. Liang Qichao. Chinese ethnic groups reconstructed Chinese history in ethnic textbooks from the ways of attitude, behavior, and experience. They shaped from the perceptive of discipline the national recognition in the form of public policy, promoting the construction of modern Chinese national state. Therefore, looking into the future of ethnic textbooks, the government should use enlarged ethnic textbook awarding policy and policies supportive of ethnic textbook research, to draw forth high quality ethnic textbooks. It also should, under the basis of practical and realistic investigation and research, scientifically plan the types and variety of ethnic textbooks to boost their function of ethnic groups integration. Moreover, it should control the area structure of ethnic textbooks with policies to promote the exerting of their political integration function.