Hybridity and Tibetan language education policies in Sichuan.

Recent research shows that many political, economic, and socio-cultural factors explain the difficulties faced by minority communities. However, this study focuses on two factors: China's minority/bilingual education policy discourse, and discursive shifts in policy enactment process in Tibetan school community. A qualitative research methodology involving an ethnographic case study approach was employed. Three theoretical lenses provided the conceptual framework: policy genealogy, discourse theory, and policy enactment. Documentary, interview, and observational data was collected from Badi Primary School, a semi-agro-pastoral town primary school in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province. Findings show that a moral-cultural order fostering monolingual and bicultural education was identified in this school, in which Tibetan students developed instrumental linguistic dispositions, characterized by cultural distance and alienated Tibetan identities. The article reveals the hybrid nature of neoliberal globalisation processes in China's minority education policies and describes the role such hybrid discourses play in shaping public representations and policy enactments in Tibetan school community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]