Ethnic Relations At School In Malaysia

This book considers the impact of the Rancangan Integrasi Murid Untuk Parpaduan (RIMUP: Student Integration Plan for Unity), the program developed as a driver towards Malaysian national integration and intended to promote an ideal of ‘unity in diversity’ through enhancing ethnic interaction in primary schools. Based on interview research with government departments, NGOs, and stakeholders at primary schools, this book highlights three main structural challenges to success of the RIMUP: the government’s weak management; the short duration and low frequency of an activity; and low student participation rate. The book also provides concrete suggestions to develop the RIMUP, to improve ethnic relations and to shape the future direction of education policies for the development of national integration, making a significant contribution to Malaysian studies as well as education policy in multi-ethnic countries.

Ethnic/racial relations have been a perennial theme in Southeast Asian studies. Current events have highlighted the tensions among ethnic groups and the need to maintain ethnic/racial harmony for national unity. This book analyses ethnic/race relations in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, with special reference to the roles of ethnic Chinese in nation-building. It brings together a group of established Southeast Asian scholars to critically examine some of the important issues such as ethnic politics, nation-building, state policies, and conflict resolution. These scholars of different ethnic origins present their own ethnic perspectives and hence make the book unique. This is the most up-to-date book on ethnic/racial relations with special reference to the ethnic Chinese in three Southeast Asian countries.

Hock Tong Cheu received his Masters and Ph.D degrees from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and had lectured in Anthropology and Sociology in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia from 1976 till mid-1995. From mid-1995 till 2000, he taught in the Malay Studies Department and the Southeast Asian Studies Center, National University of Singapore. He was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore in 1984 and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, from August 1987 to October 1988. He has made several in-depth studies of the Nine Emperor Gods Spirit-Medium Cults as well as the Chinese Locality Saints, the Nadugong, and the Malay Keramat in Southeast Asia. Dr Cheu, who is effectively trilingual in English, Chinese and Malay, wrote prolifically, and had contributed numerous articles in all three languages to professional and academic journals, magazines and newspapers. He had also presented numerous academic papers for discussion in local and international conferences.

With Malaysia in the throes of sweeping political change, academic turned political activist Dr Syed Husin Ali traces how ethnicity has been manipulated, since Independence, by Malaysian politicians for their own gain to the detriment of the masses. In articles spanning more than three decades, collected for the first time here, he dissects the origins, fallacies and destructive nature of ethnic politics in Malaysia and examines the issue of class versus ethnicity or race. It is time, he argues, for an end to race- or ethnic-based politics. In this new edition, the author has updated the book in terms of facts and events, and included two more articles.

The existence of an ethnic divide is a common problem in multiethnic societies, more so when these societies are straddled with contradictions reflected in their socioeconomic and political composition and configuration. The existence of an ethnic divide in the educational sector is most unfortunate since one of the fundamental purposes of schooling in multiethnic societies is to achieve a common process of socialisation and enculturation among the different ethnic group to achieve a strong sense of social cohesion. While Malaysia has aspired to provide a common or uniform system of schooling for the different ethnic groups since Independence, such an aspiration was however compromised by the co-existence of alternative pathways of education that are divided along ethnic lines. There are four dimensions underpinning these ethnic divisions, namely linguistic, preferential, religious and class. This monograph explores the emergence and subsequent developments of these alternative pathways of education and their impact on Malaysia’s nation-building process.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, said in the Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 October 1996: “The threat is from inside ... So we have to be armed, so to speak. Not with guns, but with the necessary laws to make sure the country remains stable.” He implied that ethnic conflict and political instability are inevitable in a multi-ethnic society unless protected by certain laws. Ethnic conflict is like a time bomb. The misuse of human rights for political ends and to exploit ethnic sentiments can spark ethnic conflict. In theory, the modern nation-state must achieve pluralism in its project of nation building. There are few nations in the world which consist of a single ethnic group. Yet, multi-ethnicity also seems to be a serious challenge to any system of government, especially in Southeast Asia, as it adds possibly deep-running cleavages to societies. Some groups are marginalized in the course of nation-building as a result of the nature of the relationship between nation and state. Arjun Appadurai stated that “the nation and the state have become one another’s project”: groups try to capture states and their power while states try to “monopolize about the nationhood.” There is always tension between the centre and the margin. The centre often consists of one ethnic group and marginalised minority groups are denied their right to equality. Sometimes horrible wars with thousands of victims commence as a consequence of such processes of ethnically-framed nation-building. Therefore, a democratic setting should be functionally superior; that is, in a better position to moderate the escalatory tendencies inherent in a multi-ethnic setting, thereby achieving less violence-prone conflict management, and its eventual resolution in Southeast Asia. This book is intended for anyone interested in the subject of ethnic relations and conflicts, especially politicians, policy makers, civil society activists, academia, and students of ethnic/race studies and Southeast Asian politics.

The diversity education literature, both nationally and internationally, is broad and diffuse. Consequently, there needs to be a systematic and logical way to organize and present the state of research for students and professionals. American citizens need to understand the dynamics of their increasingly diverse communities and institutions and the global world in which we live, work, and lead. With continually evolving information on diversity policies, practices, and programs, it is important to have one place where students, scholars, teachers, and policymakers can examine and explore research, policy, and practice issues and find answers to important questions about how diversity in U.S. education—enriched with theories, research and practices in other nations—are explained and communicated, and how they affect institutional change at both the K-12 and postsecondary levels. With about 700 signed entries with cross-references and recommended readings, the Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education (4 volumes, in both print and electronic formats) will present research and statistics, case studies, and best practices, policies, and programs at pre- and postsecondary levels. Diversity is a worldwide phenomenon, and while most of the entries in the Encyclopedia will focus on the United States, diversity issues and developments in nations around the world, including the United States, are intricately connected. Consequently, to illuminate the many aspects of diversity, this volume will contain entries from different nations in the world in order to illuminate the myriad aspects of diversity. From A-to-Z, this Encyclopedia will cover the full spectrum of diversity issues, including race, class, gender, religion, language, exceptionality, and the global dimensions of diversity as they relate to education. This four-volume reference work will be the definitive reference for diversity issues in education in the United States and the world.

Nationalism, national identity, and ethnicity are cultural issues in contemporary Western societies. Problems in the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Poland, Croatia, the Ukraine, Hungary, and Bulgaria illustrate both large-scale internal variations in these phenomena as well as their cross-national relevance for teaching, research, and educational development on such subjects as multiculturalism, ethnic diversity, and socialization.