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American Indian and Alaska Native and Chinese Ethnic Minority Higher Education: Evolution, Characteristics, and Challenges

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Ethnic Minority-Serving Institutions

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Abstract

To better understand American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) and Chinese Ethnic Minority (CEM) higher education, it is necessary to go through their histories and policies because they are relevant to the formation and development of Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) in the United States and Ethnic Minority-Serving Institutions (EMSIs) in China. This chapter reviews the literature in three primary sections, first by examining the history of AIAN higher education since the colonial era and the policies of CEM higher education from 1949. Next is an overview of the characteristics of AIAN and CEM higher education to provide the foundational contexts in which TCUs and EMSIs currently operate. Finally, this chapter summarizes the common challenges faced by TCUs and EMSIs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There is a debate regarding the starting time of the self-determination era among scholars (McClellan et al. 2005). This study will apply Carney’s (1999) segment standard that the self-determination era started from the late 1960s.

  2. 2.

    The nine colonial US colleges were Harvard College (now Harvard University), College of William and Mary, Collegiate School (now Yale University), College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), King’s College (now Columbia University), College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania), College of Rhode Island (now Brown University), Queen’s College (now Rutgers University), and Dartmouth College.

  3. 3.

    The Governmental Administration Council of the Central People’s Government of China served as the highest administrative organization from 21 October 1949 to 27 September 1954. Then it was replaced by the State Council of the PRC.

  4. 4.

    The first Ethnic Minority HEI established in the PRC was Northwestern College for Nationalities, which was set up in August 1950 (Zhang 2011).

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    Weiyan Xiong

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Xiong, W. (2020). American Indian and Alaska Native and Chinese Ethnic Minority Higher Education: Evolution, Characteristics, and Challenges. In: Ethnic Minority-Serving Institutions. International and Development Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55792-8_3

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