We consider the convective instability of the BEK family of rotating boundary-layer flows for shear thinning power-law fluids. The Bodewadt, Ekman and von Karman flows are particular cases within this family. A linear stability analysis is conducted using a Chebyshev polynomial method in order to investigate the effect of shear-thinning fluids on the convective type I (inviscid crossflow) and type II (viscous streamline curvature) modes of instability. The results reveal that an increase in shear-thinning has a universal stabilising effect across the entire BEK family. Our results are presented in terms of neutral curves, growth rates and an analysis of the energy balance. The newly-derived governing equations for both the steady mean flow and unsteady perturbation equations are given in full. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.