Bilingual education and beyond:how school settings shape the Chinese Yi minority’s socio-cultural attachments

Abstract Bilingual education policy in Liangshan, China, has been implemented since the end of the 1970s using two bilingual school models. This study examines how mainstream and bilingual education are correlated with the Yi population’s social attachment to the larger social system, and their cultural attachment to ethnocultural maintenance. The student-reported survey data collected from ten junior high schools in Liangshan were analysed using a multinomial logistic regression model that produced three findings. Firstly, family socioeconomic status is determinant in the Yi minority’s school setting choices. Secondly, school settings are significantly associated with Yi students’ educational achievements and occupational expectations. Lastly, Yi minority’s cultural attachments to their mother tongue has become significantly reduced among those attending Chinese-only schools, yet no significant discrepancy has been noted among students attending schools with two models of bilingual education