LAUSR

Abstract The ethnic minorities in China follow two major linguistic educational systems. They receive an education and write the college entrance exam in either Chinese or their own ethnic language. However, the existing literature views the expansion of Chinese education to the ethnic regions of China in recent decades as a forcible process of cultural and linguistic assimilation, so that Chinese-educated minority students become more sinicized (Han Chinese) and their own ethnic identity is eroded and eventually lost. This study examines this alleged assimilation process based on interviews with 30 Chinese-educated ethnic minority young people, including the Mongols, Tibetans, and Uighurs. Our study shows that the Chinese education process conditions the manners, skills and life goals of minority young people that facilitate them to access mainstream Chinese society. Nevertheless, they still retain ethnic ties through family life and many of them show a strong interest in their own ethnic culture.