Teaching in Northwestern China under a Neoliberal Market Economy: Opportunities and Challenges/Enseigner Dans Une éConomie De Marché, Au Nord Ouest De la Chine: Opportunités et Défis

AbstractThis study explores teachers' perspectives on the impacts of the market economy on their working and living conditions in Northwest China. Findings reveal that the participants believed that they had benefited from the market economy such as increased pay, improved working and living conditions and professional development opportunities. However, the participants found the shiftfrom the traditional teacher-centered pedagogy to a more student-centered approach and working with more resourceful students and their parents challenging and stressful. Findings also suggest that minority teachers were concerned that the current Hanyu medium of instruction may have been an impediment to minority students' educational achievement.ResumeCette etude explore l'impact de l'economie de marche a partir de la perspective des professeurs. Elle analyse les effets de l'economie de marche sur les conditions de vie et de travail, les opportunites et les defis de ces derniers au Nord Ouest de la Chine. Les resultats montrent que les participants pensent avoir eleves leurs conditions de vie et leurs opportunites professionnelles. Ils trouvent cependant que le changement pedagogique d'une part, c'est-a dire le changement d'une pedagogie traditionnelle centree sur le professeur vers une pedagogie centree sur les apprenants, ainsi que le fait de travailler avec des apprenants et des parents avec plus de ressources financieres d'autre part, est tres exigeant et stressant. Les resultats montrent egalement que les professeurs minoritaires pensent que l'actuelle methode d'enseignement, le Hanyu, peut avoir des consequences negatives sur les resultats academiques des etudiants minoritairesBackgroundA market economy began growing in China three decades ago, coinciding with a western neoliberal globalization "political project of world integration" (Peters, 2011, p. 1) that committed China to guaranteeing "the ability of market forces to negotiate values and exchange at global scale" (MacPherson, 2012, p. 193). This top-down policy proposed by Deng Xiaoping called for a shiftfrom a socialist welfare system to a market economy by enforcing household responsibilities and entrepreneurialism through joint ventures and foreign investments. As the market economy experiment coincided with the "political project of world integration," attracting foreign business to invest in Chinese joint-ventures became a major concern. The country's economy has grown at a fast pace throughout this period, only beginning to slow down this year, earning the country membership in the World Trade Organization in 2001 and, in its own way just as important, culminating in a successful space mission in 2012.The market economy is guided by a neoliberal ideology that reduces the world to a market place which promotes intense global competition for resources; reduces quality of life to pursuit of financial freedom (Macpherson, 2012); and drives an increasing number of people to work more for less, which deprives others of gainful employment. Critics argue that neoliberalism, through policies such as the privatization of public resources, is a class project that creates "ever increasing inequalities between and within states" (Peters, 2011, p. 190; also see Limpman, 2012). According to Peters, neoliberalism also promotes a one nation cultural rhetoric in which "all individuals, freed from their ethnic origins, their tribal histories, ... their traditional cultural beliefs, can participate in a modern democratic society" (Peters, 2011, p. 38). As such, it is "antagonist to the sustainability interests of indigenous languages and cultures" (MacPherson, 2012, p. 193), promoting homogeneity and monoculturalism, as it sees pluralism and ethnic diversity as threats to the modern society. Neoliberalism, critics charge, systematically excludes groups historically defined as Other (Peters, 2011), displacing them linguistically and culturally. Reflections of the global neoliberal agenda in China include various educational reforms, including the introduction of a western style student-centered pedagogy and the current craze for English language education that promotes global relevance, and the Hanyu (official national language also known as Putonhua) medium instruction for minority students to enforce homogeneity. …