About Journal of Xizang Minzu University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition)

Journal of Xizang Minzu University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition)

The Journal of Xizang Minzu University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition) is the Chinese-language social-science journal of Xizang Minzu University, known in Chinese as Xizang Minzu Daxue Xuebao. It is the humanities and social-sciences edition of the university's scholarly journal, published from Xianyang in Shaanxi Province. That geography is itself the first thing a reader needs to understand about the title. Xizang Minzu University is administered for Tibet, yet it is physically located in Xianyang, near Xi'an, far east of the Tibetan Plateau. Its journal therefore speaks from an unusual position: a Tibet-serving institution based in the Chinese interior, educating mainly Tibetan and other ethnic-minority students, and publishing philosophy and social-science research shaped by that mission. No ISSN was attested in the sources consulted for this profile, and none is stated here.

A university journal with a Tibetology and ethnic-studies base

University journals in China, generally called xuebao, exist to record and circulate the scholarship of their host institutions. The character of this journal follows directly from the character of its host. Xizang Minzu University was established to educate ethnic minorities, specifically Tibetans, and it remains under the jurisdiction of the Tibet Autonomous Region while operating in Xianyang. A philosophy and social sciences edition produced inside such a university naturally draws on humanities, ethnic studies and social sciences, and it carries a distinctive Tibetology and ethnic-studies base that a general university journal in another province would not have. Research on Tibetan history, language and culture, on ethnic relations, and on education for minority students sits alongside work in philosophy, law, economics, literature and related social-science fields pursued across the university.

Origins in the Tibet Public School of 1958

The host institution began in a very specific historical moment. After 1951 there was, in the account given in the university's history, an urgent need for a large number of ethnic-minority cadres with a certain cultural foundation. In June 1957 the Tibet Work Committee began to prepare for the establishment of the Tibet Public School. The school was not, however, opened in Tibet itself. The Tibet Work Committee decided to run it in Xianyang, Shaanxi, a city with trains to Beijing and Xining, which was considered convenient for students to return to Tibet to work after graduation. In October 1957 the Central Committee approved the allocation of the site of the former Northwestern Polytechnical College in Xianyang to the new school. The opening ceremony was held on 15 September 1958, an event described as marking the beginning of a new stage in the historical development of Tibet's national education. Zhang Guohua, deputy secretary of the Tibet Work Committee and commander of the Tibet Military Region, was formally appointed headmaster. Those details matter for the journal because they explain why a Tibet-oriented scholarly community, and in time its publications, took root on the Wei River in Shaanxi rather than in Lhasa.

From public school to college to university

The institution grew by stages, and each stage widened the academic base from which a journal could draw. In October 1963 the school set up a professional department, and its direction gradually developed towards professional education and a comprehensive institution. On 1 July 1965 the State Council approved the change of its name to Xizang Minzu College. In 1972 the college set up seven specialties and preparatory courses, in subjects including politics, electromechanics, Tibetan language, finance and accounting, animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, and health. In May 1972 a Linzhi Branch was established in Linzhi, in Tibet, with departments of agriculture, animal husbandry and veterinary medicine, finance and accounting, and electromechanics; in 1978, with State Council approval, that branch was renamed the Tibetan College of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. In 1983 the Tibetan language department of Xizang Minzu College was relocated to the Tibet Normal College. By 1995 the number of majors had increased again, with additions including administrative science, secretarial science, archival science, jurisprudence, taxation and preventive medicine. Finally, on 28 April 2015, Xizang Minzu College was renamed Xizang Minzu University with the approval of the Ministry of Education. The journal's present title follows that 2015 name, and bibliographic records show the earlier form of the title cited in scholarship as the Journal of Xizang Minzu University for Nationalities.

The host university today

The modern university that publishes the journal has more than 9,400 full-time students, more than half of whom are members of ethnic minorities including Tibetans, and 1,105 faculty members in the figures given in reference sources. It offers 42 undergraduate majors and 20 master's programmes. Other descriptions of the university stress programmes spanning humanities, social sciences, teacher training and ethnic studies, with particular strengths in Tibetan language, cultural preservation and community-focused education, and they note Mandarin and Tibetan language courses and research addressing minority education and regional development. A student body drawn largely from Tibetan and other minority communities, returning in many cases to work in Tibet, gives the journal's authors and readers a shared frame of reference: questions about how Tibetan language and culture are preserved, taught and studied, and how minority communities develop, are not abstract topics for this institution but part of its founding purpose.

Scope: philosophy and the social sciences

As its edition title states, the journal covers philosophy and the social sciences. In practice, the verifiable record of its contents shows that breadth. A 2023 article published in the journal, in its second issue of that year, examined relying on Party history learning and education to forge a sense of community for the Chinese nation among college students in Tibet, written by authors in the university's School of Marxism and funded by a National Social Science Fund youth project on cultivating that sense of community among students at Tibetan universities. A 2022 article in volume 43, issue 2, addressed the change in American global supply-chain policy for key products, prioritising security and resilience over efficiency. Earlier scholarship cited from the journal includes a 1987 article on the Tang-Tubo Alliance Stele as a historical monument of friendship between Han and Tibetan people, and a 2020 article, in volume 41, on the Naxi people between Han and Tibetan worlds, studying core symbols in the Dabaoji Palace in Lijiang. Taken together, those examples show a journal that ranges from Marxist theory and ideological and political education, through ethnic relations and Tibetan history, to international economics and the cultures of the peoples of the south-west.

Tibetology at the centre of its identity

Tibetology, the study of things related to Tibet, including its history, religion, language, culture and politics, is the field that most clearly distinguishes this journal from other Chinese university social-science journals. The host university's own history is intertwined with that field: Tibetan language was among the specialties established at the college in 1972, and the institution has educated Tibetan students continuously since 1958. Articles on the Tang-Tubo alliance, on Han-Tibetan cultural exchange, and on peoples living between Han and Tibetan civilisations, such as the Naxi study noted above, illustrate how Tibetological and ethnic-studies themes recur in its pages. For researchers working on Tibet and on China's ethnic-minority regions, the journal offers a venue written substantially from inside a minority-serving university, rather than from a metropolitan institution looking at the region from outside.

Standing and indexing

The journal's standing is attested in bibliographic sources. A citation record for its 2023 second issue identifies the journal with the CSSCI designation, the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index, and an academic curriculum vitae from Beijing Foreign Studies University likewise labels a 2022 article published in the journal, in volume 43, issue 2, as CSSCI. CSSCI listing is a significant marker in Chinese humanities and social-science publishing, where the index is widely used in academic evaluation. The journal is also cited internationally: bibliographies for Buddhist studies record its abbreviation and its place of publication, Hsienyang, an older romanisation of Xianyang, and articles from it are referenced in English-language scholarship on Tibetan and Naxi cultural history. That combination of domestic CSSCI recognition and citation in international Tibetological literature reflects the journal's dual audience.

Place, language and readership

The journal is published in Chinese, the working language of scholarship at its host university, from Xianyang in Shaanxi. Its official university website is xzmu.edu.cn. Its readership is centred on scholars in philosophy, Marxism studies, ethnic studies, Tibetology, history, literature, education, law and economics, particularly those concerned with Tibet and minority regions. Because the university itself sits outside the region it serves, the journal also functions as a bridge: it carries research produced by a Tibet-administered institution in the interior back to readers concerned with Tibet, and it carries the concerns of Tibetan students and communities into the mainstream of Chinese social-science publishing. Few Chinese university journals embody their host's history so directly, and that history, from the Tibet Public School of 1958 to the renamed university of 2015, remains the essential context for reading it.