A Comparison of Western Multicultural Education and the Minority Education in China.docx

1、A Comparison of Western Multicultural Education and the Minority Education in ChinaA Comparison of Western Multicultural Education and the Minority Education in China Western multicultural education theory has flowed into china for nearly 20 years and attracted the attention of Chinese researchers i

2、n the area of minority education theory. But most of them have no systematic understanding of the background and structure of western multicultural education, so there is a trend to just simply equate the western multicultural education to the minority education in China. As a theory system, which h

3、as a great influence on the development of world national education, if western multicultural education can be applied to Chinese minority education is still doubtable. So it is necessary now to deeply analysis this theory and to get a full understanding of the relationship between multicultural edu

4、cation and Chinese minority education.1.The historical origins 1.1The historical origin of western multicultural education During the 19-century, the dominant race groups tried hard to assimilate the minority nations into their value system in western multinational countries not only because of thei

5、r mental racial discrimination but also their fear of losing privileges. Under the assimilation policy, minority nationals have been losing their own traditional cultures and values and gradually integrate into mainstream value systems. However, for most of the minority national groups living in a s

6、ocial environment full of discrimination and inequality, they were forced to alienate their mother culture but could not blend into mainstream society. This situation made these minority national groups turn into oppressed marginalized groups in polity, economy and education. For example, the Indian

7、s, the blacks and the later immigrants in American are all in such situation. Until the 60s of last century, in western countries, especially American, Canada, British, New Zealand and soon with different ethnic populations, multiculturalism started to receive attention after the civil rights moveme

8、nts. To adapt to the development of multicultural society, multicultural education, as social movement, tried to realize the educational ideal, that all the nations cultures can be equal and survive together. Furthermore, it tried to solve the conflicts between races, improve the social position of

9、minority nation group and promote social equality and justice. Beginning with the American civil rights movements lead by Martin Luther King Jr. in the 60s of 20th century, the whole western society came into a wave of rebel and awakening. The purpose of civil rights movement is to awake the blacks

10、suffering the treatment of inequality, discrimination and exploitation. In addition to the black civil rights movement, there were also various social ideological trend and movement. On the one hand, the minority groups required the recognition and identification of their cultures and fight for the

11、equal social status and political rights；on the other hand, some social vulnerable groups besides the minority groups also fight for their own legitimate interests and rights. Echoing with the efforts of social vulnerable groups, civil rights movements drew the attention of society and the governmen

12、t. Governments protocoled corresponding laws and policies and tried to solve their problems. Multiculturalism began to receive worldwide attention from then. The wave of multicultural education has been popular in American, British, Canada and so on since 70s of 20th century as the important content

13、 of social movement and educational reform.1.2The historical origin of Chinese minority education The Chinese modern minority education appeared in the late Qing dynasty. At first, the minority education was just for very few children of upper class in minority groups. After the 1911 revolution, the

14、 government of the Republic of China had taken some measures for minority education, but failed to establish a perfect minority education system. After the 1930s, the government set up a frontier education department and emphases that frontier education should mix into all kind of Chinese culture an

15、d the education should develop as a whole. It means to replace the minority national cultures by one national culture. This period of minority education was assimilation education with the Han nationality culture as the mainstream culture. After 1949, the establishment of the Peoples Republic of Chi

16、na, Chinese minority education developed rapidly. The first national education conference made specific provisions for minority education and pointed that “ only if the minority education take care of each nations characteristics, it can be well combined with the actual situation of all ethnic group

17、s” and minority education must be national, scientific and common education and take the form suitable for all national populations development and progress.” Under this general principal which closely combine the minority educations nationality and modernization, Chinese minority education have dev

18、eloped rapidly in that period. To promote minority educations development and realize the equality of education, Chinese government took many great measures to strongly support the education in minority areas. A series of significant educational programs was carried out, such as setting up Tibet cla

19、sses and SinKlang classed in inland area, providing free primary education programs in poor areas and long distance education programs in South countryside areas and so on, which greatly promoted the development of minority national education and let Chinese minority education turn to a new period.

20、Different in essence, Chinese minority education is lead by government with legal protection while western multicultural education developed from civil rights movement and the governments compromise to conflicts.2.The different social characteristics2.1 The different political and cultural appeals A

21、S we talked before, it is not until 1960s that multicultural education began to draw attention and tried to solve the conflicts between different races after the civil rights movements. As Watson presented in his book “Multiculturalism”, multiculturalism suggests that the rejection from tradition ed

22、ucation to non-mainstream cultures should be corrected and schools must help students to eliminate their misunderstandings and discriminations to other cultures and the fair to racial conflicts, and to learn to respect and appreciate other cultures. It aims to let all the people be social, economic,

23、 cultural and political equality and oppose any discrimination caused by ethnic, race, nationality, color, religion or any other factors. Thus, multicultural education movement is a way to fight for the social, economic and cultural equality for the social vulnerable groups who are always treated un

24、equally due to race, nationality, color and religion. So we can regard the multicultural education is just a kind of civil rights movement in educational area and the main appeal of it is to solve the problems of unequal rights and political positions between different ethnic groups. Different with

25、the western multicultural education, Chinese minority education has no such political appeals. In 1949, it was stipulated in the Common Programme that “the structure of the Peoples Republic of China is a unitary multiethnic unity”, and “the regional national autonomy should be introduced in areas wh

26、ere different minority nationalities live together” on the first national political consultative conference. This policy reflects that the government fully respect and safeguard the right of ethnic minorities managing their internal affairs by themselves and also reflects that the government resists

27、 in the policy of ethnic equality and unity and tries to let all the minorities get some social position as Han nationality and own ethic minority special rights addition to the same civil rights. The purpose of Chinese minority education is to cultivate all kinds of talents needed in minority areas

28、, to speed up the economic and social development in these regions and to realize the modernization of these areas as soon as possible. So the appeal of Chinese minority education is economic, social and cultural development. Above all, western multicultural education and Chinese minority education

29、presents two different paths. Western multicultural education tries to ease and solve the ethnic and political problems through the cultural mean to resolving social contradictions, while promoting national movement process and the democratization at the same time. Chinese minority education embodie

30、s the social ideal of fairness and justice and promotes the development of national regions and shows the same interests of the state and the ethnic minorities.2.2 the different ethnic composes and origins Western multicultural education originated form the American national education and gradually

31、spreaded to Canada, Australia and other western countries. Taken as an example, the United States has been a multiethnic immigrant nation since the founding. With the discovery of new lands, British began to immigrants to North American till the beginning of the 20th century. The most populations of

32、 original 13 states in North America are British immigrants. At the same time, the blacks came to the America as the largest African group because of the slave trade. Then , to escape form the two world wars, immigrants form all of the world flew into America from the beginning of 20th century to 19

33、60s. These immigrants made the race in American society various. The structure of the American population is mainly made up of different immigrants from different countries in different period. Besides the Indians, there was no native nation in this new land. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries national sources are also from imm