Self - Identity Of Junior Middle School Students In Chinese Independent Middle School In Sabah, Malaysia

The concept of ego identity was proposed by Erik. H. Erikson. He divided the personality development into eight stages. Ego identity was an adolescent-specific development issue. If successfully completed, it would form a positive individual character, and then, the personality development would have the tendency to become mature. Emphasis on the establishment of ego identity is closely related to social and cultural backgrounds. Individual growth in different social, cultural and historical background affects local cultural characteristics, and hence the formation of unique local characteristics. Currently, researches on ego identity of junior school students have mostly been completed in the cultural context of China or Western countries.The Malaysian Chinese Independent Secondary School education system is very unique, especially under the implementation of "dual track system" in Sabah. The Chinese Independent school students have to take into account both the government and private schools’curriculum and examinations in two modes. In such a unique educational system and learning environment, it has a special impact on the establishment of ego identity.This research was the largest scale of this kind in the Malaysian state of Sabah and it uses the most populated Chinese independent secondary school for the study of their junior school students. According to the ego identity crisis scale of Xiting Huang, drawn up to test for its reliability and validity, the six factors that determine the structure were clear, with good reliability and validity. Finally, by adopting the revised scale of ego identity crisis and ego identity status of Jia Tenghou, I conducted surveys on582Sabah independent junior school students. The results were as follows:1. The independent junior school students in the Sabah state of Malaysia showed an imbalanced distribution of the ego identity status with more than half of the subjects in the identity diffusion status;2. on the status of each dimension of ego identity, the girls’crisis scores of the past were significantly higher than boys’. In the independent secondary school form one students’current level of self-devotion and desire of future self-devotion were higher than the other grades;3. The independent secondary school students in the Sabah state of Malaysia were facing more serious identity crisis, especially in the aspect of self-identity (identity diffusion);4. Girls’scores in identity crisis were lower than the boys’; but the difference was not significant. In the independent secondary school form one students’identity crisis scores were significantly higher than the other grades’;5. The scores of identity crisis were significantly different amongst the junior high school students in different types of ego identity status; There was a positive correlation between the identity crisis the students faced and their current level of self-devotion as well as their desire of future self-devotion;6. These two dimensions-"over self-consciousness" and "confusion of value" could effectively predict Identity Achievement (so-called A status); but in comparison to "over self-consciousness","confusion of value" was a more significant predictor for Identity Foreclosure (F status), Identity Moratorium (M status), Identity Achievement and Identity Foreclosure (A-F status), as well as Identity Diffusion and Identity Moratorium (D-M status).