PT Unknown
AU Schnack, H
TI making of minority language policies in Chinese schools. Street-level bureaucracy ad curriculum decisions in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China
PD 02
PY 2016
LA en
DE Implementierung; street-level bureaucracy; bilingualer Unterricht; Bildungspolitik; China; Xishuangbanna
AB This dissertation explores the relationship between institutions and decision-making within policy implementation at schools. Based on the street-level bureaucracy framework, an analytical framework that views policy implementation as a process that depends on the decisions by personnel in delivery agencies against the background of institutions, this dissertation examines the following research question: How do institutional settings of school and curriculum management affect the implementation of education in minority languages at school level?
This research question is being scrutinized with an explorative case study on education in Dai-language at a set of schools that are all located in Xishuangbanna, a multilingual prefecture in Southwest China, but that differ in their institutional settings. The study is based on data that derives from interviews that the author has conducted with school personnel, with officers from the educational administration, and with parents and students, as well as from classroom observations and the analysis of official statistics.
The first chapters present the theoretical framework, the most relevant policies concerning education in minority languages in China, the institutional background for school-based decision-making, as well as the linguistic characteristics of Xishuangbanna. Against this background the main part analyses decision-making by school personnel. This analysis focuses on three aspects: considering roles and interests, interpreting policies and institutional spaces, and making decisions and justifying them.
The existing institutional settings concerning education in Dai-language structure the implementation process by opening up spaces for decision-making, which have to be filled-up by school personnel through interpretation and consideration. School personnel thus gain the role of decision-makers, although they suffer from the dilemmas that vague policy goals provide.
In a final part this thesis also discusses possible consequences of policy implementation through school personnel’s decision-making on both the representation of ethnic minorities and the adjustment of school education towards students’ needs. Concerning both questions, however, decision-making by school personnel is unable to meet the high expectations that have been formulated by researchers and politicians. Instead, this mode of policy implementation rather allows the state to present local diversity at schools as a promise to China’s ethnic minorities, without threatening the state’s authority in prescribing educational goals.
ER