Bilingual Teaching and Ethnic Identity : The Case of Xishuangbanna Dai in Yunnan Province, China

埼玉県越谷市[特集 多文化理解の可能性]The government of the People's Republic of China, as a unified multi-ethnic state which is composed of the dominant Han majority and 55 ethnic minorities, has promoted Han/Minority bilingual education for ethnic minorities since the 1950s. In this paper, we will examine how such bilingual teaching has been instituted in elementary school education of minority areas, and influenced ethnic identity construction, based on the data and materials gathered through my fieldwork since the 1980s among the Dai villages of Jinghong Country in Xishuangbanna of Yunnan Province