| Scholarly studies are emerging from the People's Republic of China documenting the origins and challenges of educational dilemmas faced by minority students in China to acquire English trilingualism required for academic and social mobility. These challenges of educational dilemmas emanate from various sources. A significant source is China's Han ethnic majority educational system. Within this system, China's ethnic minority students experience their government's hegemonic thrust to assimilate them into the dominant Han majority culture. China's Ministry of Education assimilationist language policies bears responsibility for this hegemonic thrust. As a result, ethnic minority students in China experience challenges in maintaining their indigenous cultural identity while simultaneously striving to ensure their personal and family financial security through English acquisition. Succinctly stated, China's ethnic minority students face educational inequality in their efforts to achieve English as a third language proficiency, required for educational success and social mobility within the Han ethnic majority system. The researcher used a qualitative, narrative inquiry approach to gain an in-depth understanding of the academic and social experiences of educational inequality in acquiring English as a third language amongst ethnic minority college students in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. By the students voicing their lived experiences, this study sought to identify the critical events that have impacted them in their quest to acquire English as a third language. The study's sample consisted of eight, purposefully selected, college-aged ethnic minority students from Guangxi, China attending a medical college in one of the principal cities of the region. The participants narrated that they experienced an equal opportunity to study English equivalent to that which Han ethnic majority students experience. Additionally, the participants narrated experiencing positive academic and social experiences in acquiring English as a third language. The participants recounted that they experienced greater challenges in school, learning and speaking the majority dialect, Mandarin, rather than English. The researcher recommended this study be replicated with other ethnic minority students throughout China to create a comprehensive database from which scholars can conduct quantitative research to determine the generalized extent to which China's ethnic minority students experience inequality in gaining English as a third language proficiency. |
