Between Sacred and Secular Knowledge

This book examines how different social forces, including state ideology and policies, religious culture and ethnic identities, and economic market forces, affect Muslim parents’ perceptions and attitudes toward public and religious education.

Combining ethnographic fieldwork and a cognitive rationality framework, this book investigates ethnic minorities’ educational attainment and its shaping mechanisms. Instead of attributing the undereducation of ethnic minorities solely to structural factors such as economic constraints, cultural conflicts and state policies, this study focuses on the critical role of perceptions and expectations through which many structural factors function. The fieldwork in a predominantly Muslim village in northwest China reveals that public education and religious education are complementary in the daily pursuit of well-being. And the study further argues that the practical oriented logic of rural Muslims sheds light on the research of inequality in educational attainment.

The book will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students studying ethnic minority education in China. Those who are researching on Islam and Muslims’ identity, especially in a multiethnic society, may also find this research insightful and helpful.