Understanding Malay academic underachievement in Singapore through looking at language

Due to Singapore’s multi-racial characteristic, our bilingual policy has adopted English as lingua franca and Mandarin, Malay, Tamil as mother tongue for each racial group. This paper employs a deconstructivist approach to study Malay academic underachievement through uncovering the operations under...

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Main Author: Chin, Chain Yu
Other Authors: Genaro Castro-Vázquez
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/41535
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-415352019-12-10T13:03:01Z Understanding Malay academic underachievement in Singapore through looking at language Chin, Chain Yu Genaro Castro-Vázquez School of Humanities and Social Sciences DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Communities, classes and races Due to Singapore’s multi-racial characteristic, our bilingual policy has adopted English as lingua franca and Mandarin, Malay, Tamil as mother tongue for each racial group. This paper employs a deconstructivist approach to study Malay academic underachievement through uncovering the operations underlying the racial stereotypical essentialist claim, specifically focusing on whether a race and its native language (Malay) can possibly account for the educational outcomes for the Malays. Focus group interview was conducted with six Malay undergraduates engaged through personal contacts and snowball sampling. This study shows how language constitutes a grey zone between multiracialism and assimilation on both micro (individual) and macro (societal) levels. Through linking both micro (bilingual policy) and macro levels (“modern Singaporean”) in terms of language, the findings of this study highlight how academic achievement and/or underachievement become(s) simply a “race” issue that develop(s) to a taken-for-granted reality when it could be unearthed as a language issue. Bachelor of Arts 2010-07-19T01:26:58Z 2010-07-19T01:26:58Z 2010 2010 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/41535 en 40 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Communities, classes and races
spellingShingle DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Communities, classes and races
Chin, Chain Yu
Understanding Malay academic underachievement in Singapore through looking at language
description Due to Singapore’s multi-racial characteristic, our bilingual policy has adopted English as lingua franca and Mandarin, Malay, Tamil as mother tongue for each racial group. This paper employs a deconstructivist approach to study Malay academic underachievement through uncovering the operations underlying the racial stereotypical essentialist claim, specifically focusing on whether a race and its native language (Malay) can possibly account for the educational outcomes for the Malays. Focus group interview was conducted with six Malay undergraduates engaged through personal contacts and snowball sampling. This study shows how language constitutes a grey zone between multiracialism and assimilation on both micro (individual) and macro (societal) levels. Through linking both micro (bilingual policy) and macro levels (“modern Singaporean”) in terms of language, the findings of this study highlight how academic achievement and/or underachievement become(s) simply a “race” issue that develop(s) to a taken-for-granted reality when it could be unearthed as a language issue.
author2 Genaro Castro-Vázquez
author_facet Genaro Castro-Vázquez
Chin, Chain Yu
format Final Year Project
author Chin, Chain Yu
author_sort Chin, Chain Yu
title Understanding Malay academic underachievement in Singapore through looking at language
title_short Understanding Malay academic underachievement in Singapore through looking at language
title_full Understanding Malay academic underachievement in Singapore through looking at language
title_fullStr Understanding Malay academic underachievement in Singapore through looking at language
title_full_unstemmed Understanding Malay academic underachievement in Singapore through looking at language
title_sort understanding malay academic underachievement in singapore through looking at language
publishDate 2010
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/41535
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