Characteristics, issues, and future directions in Chinese multicultural education: a review of selected research 2000–2018

Multicultural education has aroused extensive international attention and has been promoted by a large body of advocates due to its significance for the achievement of social equity in education. Such worldwide concern, therefore, calls for collaborative work, with contributions from diverse sociocultural contexts. This paper reviews 179 research studies on Chinese multicultural education (CME) from 2000 to 2018. Six interrelated categories were identified: (1) theoretical discourses on CME; (2) multicultural curricula and instruction; (3) students’ perspectives in multicultural contexts; (4) multilingual education and language policy; (5) citizenship education; and (6) multicultural teaching and teacher education. Each category was thoroughly examined and the limitations were discussed. Also, the paper identified various issues that future research needs to address, such as broadening the concept of multicultural education, the academic communication between China and the West, and the need for empirical literature in English.