Idealistically speaking, schools are engines for upward social mobility. Education for ethnic minorities in Laos was set up to achieve nationalist, political, economic and sociocultural goals of ‘equity’ and ‘equality’. It was hoped that education would shift ethnic minorities from a lifestyle based on superstitious beliefs to a modern one, so that they could participate and enjoy ‘equality’ through educational equity. The purpose of this paper is to provide a case study of how equality as a promise in education has impacted on students’ upward mobility, particularly the political discourse of the ‘big man’. This paper explores social mobility provided by national education for ethnic minorities through boarding schooling. It finds that such education has yet to reposition ethnic minorities into the ethnic Lao sociocultural hierarchy. As a result, regardless of their educational success, students are still ranked as ‘ethnic minorities’ and as being ‘poor’ in the eyes of urban students, middle class and rich students, and the ethnic Lao elite.

中文翻译：

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老挝少数民族学生的社会流动性

从理论上讲，学校是促进社会向上流动的引擎。老挝少数民族教育的建立是为了实现“平等”和“平等”的民族主义，政治，经济和社会文化目标。希望教育能够将少数民族从基于迷信的生活方式转变为现代的生活方式，以便他们能够通过教育平等参与并享受“平等”。本文的目的是提供一个案例研究，说明平等作为教育的诺言如何影响学生的向上流动性，特别是“大人物”的政治话语。本文探讨了通过寄宿学校教育为少数民族提供的社会流动性。研究发现，这种教育尚未将少数民族重新定位为老挝民族的社会文化等级。结果是，