Language, Education and Uyghur Identity in Urban Xinjiang

As the regional lingua franca, the Uyghur language long underpinned Uyghur national identity in Xinjiang. However, since the ‘bilingual education’ policy was introduced in 2002, Chinese has been rapidly institutionalised as the sole medium of instruction in the region’s educational institutions. This book considers ways in which Uyghur urban youth identities have evolved in response to the imposition of ‘bilingual education’, and where individuals locate themselves on the various spectra of modernisation, sinicisation, re-traditionalisation and globalisation.