| China is a unitary, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural country with a written history of 4,000 years. Among its 1.1 billion people, there are 55 identified ethnic groups with a total population of about 91.2 million, who spread over 60 percent of the country's territories, most of them reside in frontier and rural areas with their own cultures and languages. From the very beginning of China's feudal dynasties to the present socialist society, it has been very difficult for any of its successive central governments to set up and implement educational policies fairly and effectively for the minorities. By focusing on a survey of the educational policies in this century from the perspectives of history, politics, culture, geography, religion, and economics, this thesis defines the Chinese concept of minority education and compares it with American and Canadian concepts. Based on historical review, it makes analyses and comparisons of the characters of different educational policies for China's minorities. Opinions are deduced concerning the development of educational policies and the raising of arguments to promote the present education for minorities in China, where a communist system evolving its own form of democracy may last into the next century.;The study involves historical reviews of the educational policies made by three opposing Chinese central governments in this century: the Ching feudalist, the Nationalist, and the Communist governments. Among these, I concentrate my study on the present ruling government policies, namely, my emphases and explanations are centered more on how the communist ideology views Chinese minorities, and what changes the Chinese Communist government has brought about in their education. |
