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.

A sound, knowledgeable and balanced account of the issues affecting ethnic relations in primary and secondary schools in the 1990s. Addressed to teachers, governors, parents, local and central government, this book reflects the tensions and pressures felt in schools today and points to the policies and practices working for improvement. This book is greatly needed, since much of the earlier literature in this field is now outdated.

This book provides a rich, detailed analysis of the experiences of young women growing up in post-colonial, rapidly modernizing Malaysia. It considers the impact of ethnicity, socio-economic status, and school experiences and achievement. It discusses the effects of Malaysia’s ethnic affirmative action programmes and of the country’s Islamisation. It sets out and compares the life trajectories of Malay, Indian and Chinese young women, making use of interview and questionnaire data gathered over a long period. It thereby depicts individuals’ transformations as they experience maturing into adulthood against a background of social and economic changes, and varying levels of inter-racial tension.

Efforts to contend with tensions inherent in multiethnic societies; case studies of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Ethnic conflict, one of the most serious and widespread problems in the world today, can undermine efforts to promote political and economic development, as well as political, economic, and social justice. It can also lead to violence and open warfare, producing horrifying levels of death and destruction. Although government policies on ethnic issues often have profound effects on a country, the subject has been neglected by most scholars and analysts. This volume analyzes different policies governments have pursued in their efforts to contend with the tensions inherent in multiethnic societies. The book focuses on Asia and the Pacific, the most populous and economically vibrant part of the world. The heart of the book is a set of case studies of government policies in sixteen countries: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, and the Federated States of Micronesia. The studies consider a wide range of political, economic, educational, linguistic, and cultural policies, and how these policies have evolved over time. Using a broad comparative perspective to assess the effectiveness of different governmental approaches, the authors offer policy recommendations that cut across individual countries and regions.

Modern nation states do not constitute closed entities. This is true especially in Southeast Asia, where Chinese migrants have continued to make their new homes over a long period of time, resulting in many different ethnic groups co-existing in new nation states. Focusing on the consequences of migration, and cultural contact between the various ethnic groups, this book describes and analyses the nature of ethnic identity and state of ethnic relations, both historically and in the present day, in multi-ethnic, pluralistic nation states in Southeast Asia. Drawing on extensive primary fieldwork in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, the book examines the mediations, and transformation of ethnic identity and the social incorporation, tensions and conflicts and the construction of new social worlds resulting from cultural contact among different ethnic groups.