Speaking the State: Linguistic Displacement and Political Support

ABSTRACT Objective We examine how the misalignment between ethnic‐language schooling and the adult linguistic environment—a condition we term linguistic displacement—shapes ethnic minorities’ political support for the central state in China. Methods Using the China Family Panel Studies (2012–2018), we link childhood school records to adult political attitudes for 210 ethnic minority respondents across 10 ethnolinguistic groups. We estimate an interaction model in which the effect of ethnic‐school attendance on central‐state evaluations is conditioned on adult Mandarin fluency as an indicator of the adult linguistic environment, with ethnicity fixed effects and a Heckman‐type selection correction to address endogeneity in school choice. Results Ethnic schooling has no measurable political cost for respondents whose adult lives remain in an ethnic‐language environment but is associated with more critical evaluations of the central state among those who have moved into a Mandarin‐dominant one. The pattern appears for central‐state evaluations but not for local‐cadre trust, consistent with hierarchical trust theory. Conclusions The findings reframe a long‐standing debate by showing that the political consequences of ethnic‐language education are not fixed but conditional on the post‐schooling linguistic environment. States that protect minority languages in schools while promoting a national lingua franca elsewhere predictably generate the conditions for linguistic displacement—and its political costs.