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This qualitative case study investigates professional identity formation of secondary school EFL teachers who are teaching in rural and multiethnic regions in Yunnan province. The data is collected from teachers in three diferent schools in the rural areas in Jinghong city, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture. This section introduces basic geographic and demographic information of Jinghong city, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and Yunnan province respectively. This section indicates the geographical and demographical information of the research sites.
Yunnan province is a frontier province in southwestern China with the largest diversity of language, culture and ethnicity. With a territory of 394,100 square kilometers and a population of 47,209,000 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2021), Yunnan is home to 26 officially identified ethnic groups, among which 15 are exclusive to China and 16 are cross-border ethnic groups. The largest ethnic group, the Han people, makes up 66.88% of the population, while the other 25 ethnic groups constitute a combined 33.12% of the total population. Now, Yunnan has 8 autonomous prefectures and 29 autonomous counties, which cover 70.2 % of the provincial territory, inhabited by 48.08% of the provincial population. The 26 ethnic groups speak 26 languages and use 22 scripts (Dao, 2005). From 1954 to 1979, supported by the central government,14 written scripts were created for those ethnic groups who had no written languages.The 14 newly developed written languages include the Jingpo, Buyi, Yi, Naxi, Miao,Li, Hani, Lisu, Dong, Zhuang, Miao, Wa, Bai, and Zaiwa. Furthermore, the central government helped to reform the written languages of the Uygur, Kazakh, Dai, Lahu,and Kirgiz people (Teng and Wen, 2005).
Yunnan is famous for her multiethnic cultures and linguistic diversities. Here, 26 officially identified ethnic groups live together in a pattern of “big dispersion and small concentration” ( da za ju, xiao ju ju ) [ 大杂居，小聚居 ]. This demographic feature has further encouraged the integration of some ethnic groups with the Han people and other neighboring ethnic groups throughout history. There are 11 ethnic groups living in the cross-border areas where different ethnic people mix, and 22 ethnic groups speak 28 languages (Tsang, 2005) because in some co-inhabited communities, people can usually speak more than one language due to frequent inter-ethnic contact. As mentioned in the literature review chapter, in addition to the economic and geographical factors, studies find that educational failure for many ethnic students often arises from the inappropriate use of languages in education (Adamson & Feng, 2014). Living in such a multicultural and multilingual context, ethnic students need to learn different languages which are linguistically-distant form their mother tongue in terms of pronunciation, written form,vocabulary and syntax. Under these circumstances, many ethnic students tend to have a high drop-out rate, while those who stay in school often don’t perform well.
Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, located at the extreme southern tip of Yunnan province, China, is about 540 kilometers from Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province. It occupies an area of some 19,096 square kilometers. There are more than ten ethnic groups like Dai, Hani, Bulang, Jinuo, etc, with a total population of 792,800 according to the statistics of 2021. Among them, the Dai people take up one third in the permanent resident population. Xishuangbanna lies just below the Tropic of Cancer and the land is hilly with some mountains and deep valleys. The Lancang River and its tributaries flow through the area. The Indian Ocean monsoons bring in humid air and it is often windless. The climate is ideal for plants and animals. One quarter of China’s faunal species and one sixth of her plant species are living and growing in this rich and fertile area.
Xishuangbanna operates nine years of compulsory education for all children.However, in practice this is not always achieved. According to the government statistics in 2015, between 80% and 100% of under sixteen in this area have some education.This implies an improving trend in education levels across the general population of Xishuangbanna. Of the adult population, about 40% have only primary education, and 25% have junior high school. There are more illiterate people than senior high school graduates in this area.
A comparison of the educational achievement of the household head and the most highly educated household member suggests that the highest educational achievement within the household is usually one level up from the household head’s. This again implies an improving trend in education at all elevations.
Even so, a considerable proportion of household heads are illiterate. This should be considered when developing extension or training materials. The highest illiteracy rates are found in the low and medium elevations in Mengla. The lowest average educational achievements are also found at the medium and low elevations of Mengla.
Education achievement by ethnic groups can also be analyzed. Although rapid improvements have been made, 30 percent of ethnic households still lack a literate family member. The Dai people have a surprisingly low education rate compared to the Han, Yi and Hani people. This corresponds to anecdotal evidence that a high proportion of Dai people leave education early to focus on rubber farming, which is relatively lucrative.
Jinghong, the capital city of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, is the political, economic and cultural center of local people. Its administrative territory covers 6,867 square kilometers and comprises of 7 counties. Jinghong is a boarder city of China sharing 112.39 km demarcation with Myanmar, Laos and Thailand with the Lancang River (Mekong), a trans-boundary river running through the town. Jinghong lies at a latitude range of 21°27’N–22°36’ N and a longitude range of 100°25’E–101°31’E (Wikipedia data) and neighboring Pu’er city to the north.
The city has a generally humid climate with strong monsoonal influences. Despite about 3—5 weeks of lower temperature (range from 5℃—10℃) , the summer is long and there is virtually no “winter”. The climate can be clearly divided into “dry season(from December to April)” and “wet season” (from May to October) in which the annual rainfall can range from 1,100 to 1,700 millimeters. The subtropical climate and mountainous environment harbor much of the biodiversity of China.
The city is ethnically diverse, there are 13 officially recognized indigenous groups living together. The total population reached 547,700 in 2019, and among other small ethnic groups (Jinuo, Blang, Lahu, Yi, Yao, Zhuang, Hui, Miao, Jingpo, Wa),Dai (144,658, 33.28%) and Hani (78,058, 18.05%) are the major ethnic groups (Data retrieved from Jinghong government website, 2019). Jinghong, the name of the city, is derived from the Dai language which means “The Town of Dawn”. Now, the city takes on an urban landscape—in addition to buildings for the government department and agencies, there are various architectures such as the airport, educational and research institutions, tourist resorts, super markets and shopping malls for city life. Buddhist temples and towers can be seen in the park, and traditional costumes are no longer favorite dresses for people living in urban regions.