Bilingual education and beyond: how school settings shape the Chinese Yi minority’s socio-cultural attachments

Bilingual education policy in Liangshan, China, has been implemented since the end of 1970s using two bilingual school models. This study examines how mainstream and are correlated with Yi population’s social attachment to larger system, their cultural ethnocultural maintenance. The student-reported survey data collected from ten junior high schools Liangshan were analysed a multinomial logistic regression model that produced three findings. Firstly, family socioeconomic status is determinant minority’s setting choices. Secondly, settings significantly associated students’ educational achievements occupational expectations. Lastly, attachments mother tongue become reduced among those attending Chinese-only schools, yet no significant discrepancy noted students models education.