Formation of Malay undergraduates’ identity vis-à-vis the Malay community’s underachievement in the educational field.

Abstract

This paper studies how 14 Malay Singaporean undergraduates form their identity and develop their sense of selfhood vis-a-vis rhetoric of the “Malay problem”, particularly the issue of educational underachievement. This is especially because these 14 Malay undergraduates do not contribute to the issue. As the Malay undergraduates articulate about their disapproval of the Malay community, they too, do not quite identify themselves with non-Malays’ competitive pursuit of economic progress. In amidst of negative connotations surrounding the “Malay Problem”, what my respondents have shown is how their sense of selfhood is able to be reflexive, evaluate and eventually form positive self-concepts about themselves through positive appraisals and social comparisons against their Malay peers.