A Study On The Impact Of Malaysian Chinese Education On The Cultural Identity Of Local Ethnic Chinese

After more than two centuries of development,Malaysian Chinese education has achieved remarkable achievements.The development of local Chinese education is second to none in Southeast Asia.Compared with other ethnic chinese in Southeast Asia,the uniqueness of the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia is not only in the complete Chinese education system they have overcome all difficulties in establishing,b ut also in the different trends of their cultural identity.In the decades after the end of World War II,the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia has subtly completed the transformation of their political identity under the fever of national independence,an d also,their cultural identity was difficult to be granted legitimacy by the host country.For a minority ethnic group,the transformation of cultural identity seems inevitable,when the entire society is moving towards cultural homogeneity ——at least in other Southeast Asian countries.However,at the same time,Malaysian Chinese were in high identity when facing cultural assimilation.Not only did the ethnic Chinese build Chinese education for the whole group,but also the Chinese education movement which defends Chinese culture and education was in full swing.Since then,the cultural identity of the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia has taken a different path from that of the Chinese in other Southeast Asian countries.In order to explore the relationship betwe en the identity work of Malaysian Chinese i n the face of cultural threats and the Chinese language education throughout them,this thesis uses Manuel Castell’s identity construction theory based on minority identity construction experience as the theory.Basically,from the perspective of construct ivism,analyze the historical construction of this ethnic group’s cultural identity and its construction form,and try to explore the law of its development in the future.The specific research of this paper is as follows:The main body of the thesis is di vided into three parts.The first part traces the identity of Chinese dialect societies in Malaya before the establishment of the modern Chinese education.At that time,the Chinese community where there were many dialect societies had not yet formed a homogenous identity based on ethnic culture,only the identity of dialect societies based on the culture and customs transplanted from China.The establishment of the modern Chinese school and the spread of mandarin gradually broke the dialectal barriers within the Chinese society.During the period around World War II,the ethnic Chinese constructed a defensive identity through the active identity work of defending Chinese education,which is what Manuel Castell cal led Resistance Identity.Since then,Chines e education has been centralized in the entire ethnic culture—becoming the core of resistance for the ethnic Chinese to practise their identity work and construct the resistance identity.The second part of the thesis analyzes the development of the cultur al identity of the Malaysian Chinese in the critical period around the country’s independence from three aspects : the Chinese education associations,the Chinese education movement and the Chinese education system.Firstly,during this period,two important Chinese education associations,the UCSTA and UCSCA,acted as legal defenders of Chinese culture.Their most prominent contribution was to establish the legitimacy of the Chinese culture,including the Chinese education,in the political structure of Mala ysia,which enables the Chinese culture gain a living space under the domination of the predominate culture.Secondly,the Chinese education movement that emerged during this critical period further produced the effect of identity amplification among the ethnic Chinese.The duality of the Chinese Education Movement as a collective action of identity work enable it not only to intuitively reflect the changes in the cultural identity of the ethnic Chinese,but also to foregrounding the ethnic identity during the movement,achieving the effect of identity amplification.Thirdly,the important influence of the Chinese education system lies in its creation of a new form of identity construction.Malaysia’s complete Chinese education system has created a " the linguistic market place " and " the cultural market place " for ethnic Chinese students with its systematic education and perfect scale,enabling the Chinese education system to temporarily replace the national educ ation system to play the role of the dominant institutions of society,thereby ensuring legitimately introduce the cultural identity for the ethnic Chinese.In a multi-ethnic society,especially when only one ethnic culture is in a dominant position,the cultural identity constructed by this new form not only preserves the core of ethnic cultural resistance,but also reduces the resistance of ethnic identity construction of the minority.The third part of the thesis mainly analyzes the transformation of th e construction form of Malaysian Chinese cu ltural identity under the dual influence —— the decline of Chinese education and the expansion of the national education system.After a comparative analysis of the negative participation of the ethnic Chinese tow ards the Chinese education movement and their active participation in national social movements,we believe that the cultural identity of the Malaysian Chinese is showing a project identity trend.This trend of project identity has different manifestations,either after accepting ethnic integration,it turns to a kind of legitimizing identity,or it evasively constructs a negative project identity in the gap of domination and resistance.Regardless of its performance,this project identity trend is an identity crisis that needs urgent attention.