The Relationship between the Trade Culture of a Hui Community and State Schooling: A Case Study of the Hui Community in Chaocheng, Shandong Province

Abstract

Chaocheng Township, Shenxian County, in Shandong Province has a dense Hui population. The Hui are Muslims and officially one of the fifty-five ethnic minorities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). As in other Hui communities across the country beginning in the 1980s, the market economy and fumin policy (a preferential policy that encourages the Hui to get rich) have had a great impact on Chaocheng’s Hui population (see Gladney 1998). Relying on traditional industries such as leather processing, the local Hui people have rapidly improved their living and financial conditions over the past decade. Chaocheng Township overall has benefited from the revival of Hui small-scale industries and thus is economically better off than other townships in Shenxian County. However, the failure of the township’s secondary schools to enroll and retain Hui students is a persistent problem— most of the secondary-school-age students in the local Hui community have dropped out of school. As a consequence, the educational level of the Hui community is lower than the county’s average. Surprisingly, the rapid economic development of the community has had almost no effect on raising the township’s educational level (see Ma 2004).