Effects of policy changes on college enrollment of minority students in China, 1949-1989

This thesis is a historical study of higher education in five regions of ethnic minorities in China. The concern of this thesis is, through a historical review, to find trends in ethnic enrollment in higher education, 1949 through 1989, as results of policy changes made by the Central Government.; There are fifty-five ethnic minorities in China. The five dominant minorities I concentrate on are as follows: Korean nationality, Mongolian nationality, Tibetan nationality, Uigur nationality, and Zhuang nationality.; Research question. What are the policies regarding development of higher education among minority nationalities? How have policies changed over time? What are the effects of these changes on college enrollment of minority students? In higher education, what does the Central Government want to achieve for the five national minorities? How effective are policies and policy changes in meeting such wants?; Data collection. The Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research are the main places where I conduct research. I use government documentation and institutional documents as sources of qualitative data and sources evidence. I use yearbooks to gather quantitative data.; I collect supplementary materials from major institutions of higher learning in the five minority regions. In addition, I interview scholars who come from, or who have working experiences in these regions.; Data analysis. China has experienced several historical periods since 1949. Major policies shift from period to period. The approach I use in my study is to concentrate on the contents of policies, marking out changes and giving a descriptive analysis of policy effectiveness.; The study of development of higher education among the ethnic groups on the frontiers of China remains a frontier of educational research. It is my intention to introduce to Western people what has been going on in the past forty years in Guangxi Zhuang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang Uigur, and Yanbian Korean.; I allocate each chapter to educational development within one historical period. I hope that this will provide readers, especially Chinese and American educational policy makers, with a clear picture and therefore a clear sense of educational situations in those five minority regions.