Cultural Identity of Malaysian Chinese language education Formed under the Influence of Two-Way Institutional Changes in Contrasting Perspectives, 1950s - 1980s

Abstract

Malaysia is the Southeast Asian country with the most complete retention of Chinese language education after independence. In the face of the nationalist policies after the Second World War, why is Malaysian Chinese language education unique from other Southeast Asian countries? With such a question, this paper intercepts the development of Chinese language education in Malaysia and the Philippines during the early period of independence of Southeast Asian countries in the 1950s - 1980s, by comparing and combining the theory of two-way institutional change. It is found that there existed a Chinese education organization in Malaysia during this period that was able to compete with the government's nationalistic policy, thus under the two-way game movement of top-down institutional change by the government and bottom-up institutional change by the Chinese education organization, the survival of Chinese schools and national cultural identity became possible. This will serve as a reference for the construction and development of language schools in foreign countries and the maintenance of national cultural identity.