This paper examines Tibetan ethnicity by studying the language ideologies among Tibetan students and their persistent roles in shaping ethnic boundaries at a Minzu University (MU). MU attracts the highest achieving ethnic minority students throughout China and explicitly aims to turn them into patriotic minority cadres. Hosting extremely heterogeneous Tibetans from different dialect groups, MU is an ideal field for studying inter-ethnic relations and in-group interactions among Tibetans. Ethnographic data reveals that Tibetan language has been a significant ethnic boundary marker and a crucial toolkit for ethnic empowerment. On one hand, it has been used as an exclusive way of distinguishing between ‘pure’ and ‘non-pure’, ‘authentic’ and ‘fake’ Tibetans, the latter of which are discriminated against on campus by both Tibetan and Han students. On the other hand, Tibetan language has been conveniently appropriated by the so-called authentic Tibetans to organise many ethnic cultural practices, resist the marginalisation of the Tibetan group, and achieve a higher ethnic status. Yet, Tibetans’ discourses on ‘authenticity’ are rooted in the same principles of alterity and hierarchy under which minorities are subject to by the majority, that they unavoidably marginalise and stigmatise certain ‘non-standard’ yet culturally Tibetan populations.

Drawing on individual interviews with graduates of the state-run boarding program in the Chinese heartland called ‘inland Tibet classes’ (ITC), this paper examines how such individuals respond to state schooling aimed at minority citizen-making by interpreting their ethnicity and negotiating ethnic boundaries in the Han Chinese-dominant society. Considering citizenship as a process of being made and self-making in relation to state powers, this paper examines the complexities, internal tensions, and dilemmas in citizenship making for these young Tibetans. This paper finds that push and pull factors – their ontological insecurity in inland cities and state-guaranteed secure jobs and ontological security in Tibet respectively – together have contributed to the process of ITC graduates studied learning to be ‘safe citizens’. Although the ITC policy succeeded in cultivating numerous ‘safe citizens’, the state’s failure to establish a ‘safe space’ at large for Tibetans might jeopardize the larger aims of this state project in the long term.

Considered a major ethnic policy aimed at providing “intellectual aid for Tibet”, the interior Tibet schools have recruited more than 100,000 primary school graduates to undertake secondary education in China’s developed cities. This kind of dislocated schooling, although purportedly offering better pedagogy, has been criticised for jeopardising the local educational ecology in Tibet and disconnecting Tibetan students from their families and home communities. Some claim the downplaying of the Tibetan language and culture in these schools implies an assimilatory agenda. Yet the interior Tibet school system, with its primary goal of promoting national unity, has also cultivated a group of culturally and politically conscious Tibetan elites. In order to address these concerns, a localised version has emerged with the establishment of Tibetan schools in the regional capital of Lhasa and the importing of Han teachers from interior cities. Some have praised this new hybrid model, but my interviews with Tibetan teachers working in these schools reveal complicated uncertainties over this policy diversion. By comparing the aid politics of the two different models of dislocated minority education, this article highlights the importance of integrating indigenous voices into the policy process, especially if the state wants to sustain its educational programs for Tibetan students.

This article explores the impact of educational mobilities on the ethnic identity construction of minority students in China. Adopting ‘temporality’ as an analytical tool, the article highlights the dynamic temporal multiplicity in ethnic identity construction by comparing longitudinal in-depth interviews of a Mongolian student and a Tibetan student. This multiplicity of temporality is manifested in three aspects: temporality of ethnic othering; temporality of ethnic identity awakening; and temporality of ‘worldly time’ and ‘ethnic time’. Both ‘worldly time’ and ‘ethnic time’ entail distinctive understandings about these students’ pace and priorities in life. Both students defer their ‘permanent’ ethnic identity to an imagined future. Yet, adopting the gaze of the dominant others, both students subconsciously constructed an essentialist view of their ethnic cultures as fixed and stable, and those of the dominant cultures as alive and fluid. This article enriches our understanding of the politics of subjectivation through the lens of ‘temporality’.

Situated in the broader context of educational aid for Tibet and higher education reform in China, this article examines efforts to develop higher education in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Based on document analyses, observations and interviews, we interrogate the thoughts and actions of university officials in the TAR when responding to the state's call for the creation of “double first-class” (shuangyiliu双一流) universities and disciplines. Our study identifies two main strategies adopted by university officials: capitalizing on the plateau's unique geography and China's system of preferential ethnic policies. University administrators hope to use the TAR's unique and strategic location as a springboard for curriculum and research development, while drawing on aid and assistance from the central government and partner universities. We conclude that the future of higher education in the TAR is highly dependent on external assistance and that the region faces an uphill battle in building a truly world-class university.

Adopting empowerment as a theoretical lens, this paper examines how a combination of structural (particularly class background) and individual factors (particularly empowering agents and a strong personal will to achieve) have contributed to school success and ethnic identity formation of minority students in China. Our longitudinal study on a Tibetan student (Dolma) from middle-class background who completed seven-year dislocated secondary schooling and four-year undergraduate studies in China’s interior (Neidi) suggests the complexity and lack of institutional empowerment in every-day schooling. Although the implementation of preferential policies has expanded educational opportunities for ethnic minorities, the systemic failure to acknowledge the ethnic capital of minority groups at large accounts for the struggles along Dolma’s educational mobilities. Thanks to two teachers who acted as empowering agents, Dolma’s school adaptation in neidi was made less bumpy. While parental involvement was largely missing during the dislocated secondary schooling, her middle-class background greatly facilitated Dolma’s social adaptation and educational success in undergraduate and postgraduate studies. With a strong will to represent Tibetan culture appropriately to the mainstream society, Dolma gradually learned to get ahead while retaining her ethnic salience. This study calls for more culturally reflexive policy changes to achieve institutional empowerment of ethnic minority students.