U.S. and Non-U.S. Scholars

Fulbright New Century Scholars Program
Overview • Previous NCS Programs • NCS Scholar List • NCS Brochure • 2002-2003

Nima Badeng

Dean
Faculty of Education Sichuan Normal University
Department of Education
Multicultural Education as a Tool for Ameliorating Ethnic Conflict
China

Nima Badeng was born in Danbar County in Kham area Tibet (Danbar County in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province) China in May of 1958, where he had primary and secondary education from 1966 to 1977. He received his Ph.D. in education from Northwest Normal University of China. Presently, he is associate professor and dean of the Education Department of Sichuan Normal University, as well as president of the educational scientific college of Sichuan Normal University. He has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Hong Kong, the University of Tromso, the University of Oslo, and the Institute of Education, University of London.

Dr. Badeng's research employs an interdisciplinary approach and combines perspectives from pedagogy, psychology, sociology, culturology, economics, philosophy, politics and history, and he examines the relationships between different fields of educational research, such as curriculum, teaching content, teaching methods, school arrangement, educational evaluation, etc. His research focus is on how best to develop education in order to achieve equity in education and opportunities for all children in a multicultural society.

Selected Publications:

Bewildered of Civilization--the way of Tibetan School Education. Sichuan Nationality Publishing House, 9, 2000.
Tibetan Education on the Basis of Their Culture. Ganshu People's Publishing House, 7, 1998.
"The Poverty, Structure and Development in the Ethnic Areas of Sichuan of China."Developing Sichuan In 2000. Sichuan People's Publishing House, 1998: 99-112.
"The Way Out for Tibetan Education." Chinese Education And Society, vol.30, no.4, 1997: 7-20.

Multicultural Education as a Tool for Ameliorating Ethnic Conflict

In order to fully utilize the opportunity afforded a participant in the NCS program, I intend to adopt a three-step approach. First, during the initial meetings with other NCS participants and American specialists, I will solicit their views concerning which attributes of ethnic conflicts are universal attributes manifested by all such conflicts, and which appear to be uniquely characteristic of a specific conflict, e.g., are religious differences present in all ethnic conflicts?

Second, as both my educational background and all my professional experience has been in the field of education, I feel I must broaden my perspective by gaining an understanding of how specialists in other disciplines-particularly political science, sociology and economics-analyze the causes of ethnic conflicts and also by examining their proposals for peacefully resolving such conflicts. To do this I hope to meet with such specialists and collect materials for later in depth study.

Third, I plan to use the time spent at the University of Washington to examine how American education specialists design and implement multicultural curriculums aimed at fostering mutual understanding among America's diverse ethnic groups and thus, help to peacefully resolve America's ethnic conflicts.

I am particularly interested in examining in detail two such conflicts: that between many members of the American Jewish community and many members of the African-American community; and that between many members of the native American community and many members of nearly all America's diverse immigrant communities. I have chosen to examine these two ethnic conflicts because both are long-standing in American culture and both are the focus of extensive political, economic and sociological research. Naturally, since much of this work has been carried out by scholars representing the diverse views held by members of each of the concerned communities, there are also diverse conclusions both as to the causes of conflict and possible methods for resolving them.

Finally, I want to make a detailed analysis of how educational specialists in the U.S. have used these data to design and develop multicultural curriculum materials aimed at fostering mutual understanding among children and young adults and thus working toward peaceful resolution of ethnic conflicts within American society. By collecting develop a first draft curriculum plan for using a multicultural approach to foster genuine mutual respect between ethnic Chinese and ethnic Tibetan students. The Chinese and Tibetan cultural traditions are, on the one hand, extremely different. Yet, on the other hand, they are equally rich and ancient cultural heritages. Neither should be expected to "lose " to the other.

The NCS year will be an invaluable personal experience regardless, but if I can complete a working draft proposal for a curriculum based on multicultural approaches to educating students of conflicting ethnic backgrounds, a curriculum aimed a fostering mutual understanding as the only way to both resolve ethnic conflicts peacefully and preserve the cultural diversity of Chinese society, then this NCS year will be an indispensable first step toward resolving one of the world's longest standing ethnic conflicts.