Teachers’ Multicultural Awareness-13 mar.doc

OU Qunhui, DU Na Teachers’ Multicultural Awareness and the Ethnic Identity of Minority Students: An Individual Case Study of a Hani Student Abstract This study considers the role of teachers’ multicultural awareness in promoting minority students’ ethnic identity, through an examination of the situation in one particular middle school. A case study of a Hani student is presented to show how teachers’ multicultural awareness affects ethnic identity and the academic achievement of minority students. This case study enables the author to assess the significance and value of teachers’ multicultural awareness as an educational concept. Through the study, the author points to the need to strengthen multicultural awareness in teachers’ education to meet requirements of cultural diversity. The author emphasizes the importance of such awareness as a target of teacher training. Keywords minority students, ethnic identity, teachers’ multicultural awareness Introduction Various scholars have noted that the People’s Republic of China’s ethnic minority population represents a cultural contrast to the country’s ethnic majority Han population. However, generally speaking, school enrollment rates in minority areas are low, as the performance of ethnic minority students in China tends to be lower than that of Han students, and they are more likely to drop out of school early (Harrell, 2000). One possible reason for the relatively lower academic achievement of ethnic minority students might be related to their sense of ethnic identity. Positive ethnic minority cultural identification may enhance teenagers’ self-esteem, increase their sense of psychological belonging and assist them to form positive social attitudes, thereby improving their self-efficacy, use of positive emotions, and ability to mitigate against negative emotions. It is therefore useful to explore the relationship between ethnic identity and formal schooling. With most research in this field in China using scale test