Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii, 1968. / Bibliography: leaves [523]-543. / xi, 543 l

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The thesis is contextualized in the theory and research surrounding bilingualism and second language learning. In particular it concerns attitude to language as a key construct in the explication of language policy within a country. Three chapters provide the background to the research of the thesis. The first two chapters concern the history of the language situation and of bilingual education in Malaysia and consider how Bahasa Malaysia has recently been accorded increasing status in order to foster national unity and integration. The third chapter reviews attitude theory and measurement as it relates to language, with consideration of the world-wide research into language attitudes. The thesis proceeds to report two investigations carried out at four Teacher's Colleges in Malaysia. The investigations aimed to identify the major dimensions of language attitudes using a questionnaire approach. In both investigations, a factor analysis revealed five very similar dimensions: (i) a general instrumental and integrative orientation towards the English language, (ii) parental encouragement towards the English language, (iii) students' anxiety, boredom and nervousness in learning the English language, (iv) students' attitudes towards the home xiv country, its values, culture and language and, (v) students' attitudes towards foreigners. The study also examined the relationship between these five factors and selected variables such as gender, age, ethnic and home language, college and religious affiliation and parental educational background. The variety of inter-relationship help to validate the factor scales and provide an innovative scenario of differences in attitude amongst various groups of Malaysian trainee-teachers.

In 1957 Malaya achieved her independence from the British. This was a triumph of racial cooperation. The new Malayan nation is above all an experiment in continuing racial cooperation. It involves the coming together of peoples of diverse languages, religions, customs, value systems — in a word, of diverse cultures — in an effort to master their future. The experiment is beset with problems which the interaction of diverse cultures beyond a superficial level is bound to create, and it consists in efforts to resolve or at least to minimise conflict and to form new relations. The basic problems in the experiment are how to resolve or minimize conflict and what new relations to form. This exercise studies one dimension of the problems of the experiment, namely, Chinese education. Because education is closely bound up with language and cultural values, it throws up the full complexity of the problems of the experiment and offers a rewarding study of the nature, that is, the-how-and-the-what, of the experiment. Chinese education is here taken to mean education in the Chinese language rather than education of the Chinese people in Malaya. The distinction is that while most Chinese in Malaya have been educated in the Chinese language, there have been many Chinese who have been predominantly or entirely English-educated. This delineation of the subject of the study does not necessarily imply that the problem of Malayan unity is limited to the Chinese whose education has been in the Chinese language, although between the Chinese-educated and the English-educated the problem may be different. However, education in the Chinese language has presented an acute problem in efforts to create a Malayan unity, and it well deserves a close study. The study covers the period mainly from 1946 to 1962 when Chinese education first became an acute problem for Malayan unity and when a Malayan national education system into which Chinese education was to be integrated could be said to have been established. However, the roots of the problem had been planted long before the Pacific War, and these have been recounted in some detail so as to explain the earlier structure of Chinese education in Malaya before it was called upon to adapt itself to change. For this purpose Malaya in this study covers the area formerly known as British Malaya, comprising the Malay States and the Straits Settlements, including Singapore, until the latter was made into a separate colony after World War II, after which the term refers to what was to become the Federation of Malaya. The colonial situation in which the Chinese in Malaya were segregated socially and politically from the greater society, and the Chinese nationalism with which Chinese schools in Malaya had been saturated and which strongly drew the Chinese in Malaya towards China, have been treated as twin roots of the problem of Chinese education for the purpose of this study. This was a cultural-political problem which, in the context of post-war Malaya in which the British were relinquishing their rule, severely tested the ability of the Malayans to cooperate in order to master their destiny. The British colonial authorities had failed to overcome it because they were obliged, by their commitment to the Malays, to approach Malayan unity through a division of the problem. The Pacific War, the passing of British colonialism, and the rise of Communist China have been factors encouraging the Chinese towards acquiring a local identity, while the advent of independence, the rough balance of forces within the Malayan polity, and the moderate and enlightened leadership of the first generation of Malayan national leaders, have made for racial cooperation on the basis of a compromise of the claims of the various communities. This cooperation has been dictated by necessity rather than by choice, and it has been reached only after hard bargaining between the Malays and the Chinese. The whole gamut of the process of this bargaining and the need for compromise are brought into play in the efforts to establish a national system of education which would resolve the problem of Chinese education. The solution of the problem of Chinese education within the national system of education so far has indicated that a complete assimilation of the Chinese into Malay ways can only be a distant goal. The short-term practical objectives of the Government's educational policy have been directed towards hastening the growth of Malay economic strength and delaying the dilution of their political power. This is done by elevating the status of education in the Malay language and by enforcing a limited but increasing degree of acculturation of Malay characteristics on the Chinese, while permitting a measure of cultural plurality. In this way education in Malay is weighted with an economic value and a symbolic significance in the national system. The national system of education could be said to have been established by 1962. However, the Government's educational policy continues to divide the various communities, and the future of Malayan education promises to be full of controversy which only time can resolve. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This statement helps explain what I personally experience after having travelled half way across the world and stayed in Canada for almost two years. Accordingly, this work is an attempt to look back into the educational systems in the different territories of my homeland, Malaysia, and to examine them from a broader perspective and in terms of other systems. [...]

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This thesis explores the role of foreign cultural capital, that is, Western knowledge, skills, dispositions and qualifications obtained through various modes of UK international tertiary education in facilitating social reproduction and mobility. The focus is on Malaysian young adults from middle-class backgrounds. It offers a critical exploration of the intricacies and contradictions surrounding the applicability of Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital in explaining occupational and status distinction across different geographical and socio-relational contexts in Malaysia and the UK. Drawing on interviews with three samples of Malaysian students and recent graduates of UK tertiary education, I explored the anticipation and experiences of the rewards and disadvantages of undertaking international education in the UK and Malaysia. I investigated the planned and executed strategies to secure superior employment and status. I studied the intersection of class with age, ethnicity, gender, nationality and religion in structuring educational and occupational choices, practices and experiences. I explored perceptions and feelings of worth that surrounded planned and actual practices of translating cultural capital to economic and social privileges. Studying overseas in an elite UK university was believed to offer the most privileged opportunities to gain better quality education, experience a higher valued culture, lifestyle, social mix and physical landscape in the West and independently embark on a journey of personal growth and self-discovery. Graduates who studied physically in the UK were generally confident of their labour market and status advantages and saw themselves as more knowledgeable and globally exposed than those pursuing UK education in Malaysia. The latter believed that their relative labour market strengths lay in their enhancement and appropriation of more common local cultural capital in the forms of local knowledge, interaction skills and cultural sensitivity. Flexible and moderate personalisation of foreign and local cultural capital embodied in the self, alongside appropriate deployment and adornment of the physical body, provided the solution for the participants to overcome the relative limitations of the knowledge, skills and dispositions acquired through their respective modes of UK studies. Age, ethnicity and gender were perceived and experienced as significant factors shaping inclusion and exclusion in the Malaysian labour market. Nationality and ethnicity were the significant factors for labour market inclusion and exclusion in the UK. There was a general desire to convert enhanced cultural capital into occupational and status opportunities that allowed for work-life balance, personal contentment, religious fulfilment, emotional security and contribution to society. The thesis contributes to problematising the taken-for-granted singularity of cultural capital practices, showing that their associated benefits and shortcomings do not transfer smoothly across different place, situational and interactional contexts. It challenges the assumption that the scarcity and exclusivity of foreign cultural capital bring labour market advantage in the home context and it highlights the functional value of more common local cultural capital. It accounts for instrumentality and deliberateness in capital accumulation strategies as well as casts light on the principles, values and preferences which set limits to strategies of maximising material gains. It pieces together the practices, relations and feelings occurring at different points of the academic and occupational trajectories for the diverse Malaysian foreign student and graduate middle-class. It essentially adds depth and complexity to the investigation of intersecting individual, socio-relational and structural factors that shape perceived possibilities and experienced actualities of middle-class social reproduction and mobility among Malaysian students and graduates of UK international education. The thesis has important policy implications for the development of an equitable opportunity system in Malaysia and the socially responsible marketing and provision of international tertiary education in Malaysia and the UK.

The study examines the perception of faculty members and students towards library services and usage in three selected Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia. It attempts to find out how academic users felt towards library staff/library services, their actual needs, library usage and their expectations of the library. It also looks closely at the feasibility and possible impact of the library/information skills course as part of the Higher Education Institutions' Curriculum. An extensive review of related and relevant literature that includes previous and present studies is also discussed. In addition, a profile of Malaysia, its educational system and the development of academic libraries are also presented in the study. The population studied was drawn from faculty members and students of three selected Higher Education Institutions. Data was collected using selfadministered questionnaires, personal interview, group interviews/ discussions with focus groups and a short skill test. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data collected from the questionnaires and the short skill test. As for the interviews, important and relevant comments or suggestions were collated and incorporated in the research. The study concludes that users are not really getting the full benefit of the library services and some of the services are under-utilised. The major causes or reasons for this problem are the lack of knowledge and the low state of awareness of certain services, attitude of staff, inadequate training to use the services and the lack of computer facilities. Finally. the idea of having an in-class library/information skills course for students is well received by users of the three Higher Education Institutions.

In July, 1969, the Malaysian Minister of Education announced 'a new education policy' under which English, Chinese and Tamil schools were required to begin the process of conversion to Malay medium instruction in stages, beginning in 1970. This policy to introduce Malay as the medium of instruction took roughly forty years to evolve. The aim of this study is to examine how this was achieved through four phases of politics and government in West Malaysia: (i) The British Colonial Administration, 1930-1941; (ii) The Post-War Colonial Administration, 1945-1954; (iii) The Alliance Government, 1955-1961, and (iv) The Alliance Government, 1962-1971. It was observed in this study that though non-Malay demands for the preservation of their vernacular schools were persistent and consistent they lacked political unity and cohesiveness in successfully pursuing their demands. The Malays, in contrast were initially apathetic towards the language question. They became politicized during the period preceding Independence, however and were able to establish their political supremacy. A consequence of this was that they were able to pursue a communally oriented language policy with great effectiveness so that Malay became established as the medium of instruction. The policy was successfully pursued by a series of Government Ordinances and Acts that were designed to ensure that the provisions of the Constitution with regards to the Malay language were adhered to while permitting flexibility in their implementation. However, it was found that the constitutional contract between the Malays and the non-Malays was an important and integral aspect of the policy making Malay the medium of instruction. Perhaps the most important reason for the successful establishment of the policy lies in the gradualistic and incremental nature in which the policy was implemented. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy