Ethnicity, education and empowerment, Chapter 6

Pp 150-188 Minority students and academic success-The microinteractionist perspective

The last Chapter has discussed the social structures as the framework for the minority students to construct their identities. This chapter talks about in detail that how they do the identity construction, espcially the efforts to develop achievement-oriented selves through individual interviews.

Identity construction within families
1. How families help students succeed in school: financial support, free time from family work, teacher contact, emotional and academic support.
2. Students' perception of family help and sense of filial obligation.
3. How students define family--> usually extend family.
4. How they are redefined by family members?--> almost the same as they thought.

Identity construction within villages
1. Social redefinitions by villagers and personal definitions by students: University students as good children, almost the same as they thought.
2. Challenges to the constructions of achievement-oriented selves: local cultural environment is not that good for children to do hard work. So they become university students meaning they are successful.
3. Role taking: University students become role model, being looked upon by villagers. And the previously university students in villages are the models for the current ones in their childhood.
4. Practicing success: University students are thought by the villagers as "outstanding scholar", they encourage their children to learn from the university students. USs also publicize themselves (no sense? because of their model role?) to the younger children to have more education.

therefore, villagers play an important part in the construction of the students' achievement-oriented self. They supplied a social definition of outstanding scholar on the students.

Identity construction within schools
1. Redefinition by significant others: Helps and concerns from teachers, from meeting problems to growing up and becoming university students.
2. The importance of attending the right school: studying in a better school and so forth.
3. How teachers help students construct AOS (achievement-oriented selves): teachers as parents, as enablers （伯乐？）, as role models.
4. How students help each other construct AOS: academic help of each other and so on.

The salience of ethnic identity for minority student
1. Language use in family: Most use ethnic/local language rather than Mandarin Chinese. They learned Mandarin quite late.
2. Network with other people: School free time spent with Han students and other minority ones, Han occupies most because of its dominated population in schooling.
3. How ethnicity contributes to success in school: Cultural influences.
4. Preferential educational policies: Most agree that they benefit from these policies.
5. Minority group characteristics: good, group spirit, and they have positive impacts on educational achievements.
6. Symbolic ethnicity: High, a means for maintaining some degree of ethnic identity and feeling.
7. Group distinctions.
8. Prejudice (attitude) and discrimination (behavior) : sufferred.