Division to Unification: Concept of the Chinese Nation Behind Bilingual Education Policies in the Sichuan Tibetan Area

Abstract

The imagination of the Chinese nation is a process continuing up to the present. As the Ethnic Classification Project was significant in the initial construction of the Chinese nation, education played an essential role in the latter part of the story. This paper focuses on the changes in bilingual education policies in the Sichuan Tibetan area, whose self-identities were typically influenced by bilingual education policies, to show the change of the definition of the Chinese nation. In history, self-identities in the Sichuan Tibetan area stay blurred. The Tibetan identity in that area clearly appeared after the Ethnic Classification Project in the official scope. Before the 1990s, local people had little concern about Tibetan identity, so the bilingual education policies in the early reform era focused on the division between Han and Minority to cultivate self-identity and idealized others; in the 2010s, local people identified themselves but alienated Han, so the education policies in the era of Xi Jinping concentrated on the of unification of all ethnic groups.