ETHNIC IDENTITY AND SELF-ESTEEM OF CHINESE MALAYSIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: DOES UNIVERSITY SOCIAL CONTEXT MATTER?

Amy Lou Lundell,Chong Wu Ling,Thirunaukarasu Subramaniam

doi:10.22452/jati.vol24no1.9

Abstract

Ethnic Chinese constitute a large, albeit minority, group in Malaysian society. Within this group, Chinese Malaysians come from a wide variety of linguistic, religious, and educational backgrounds. The overall purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the impact of university social context on ethnic identity and self-reported global self-esteem for Chinese Malaysian university students. To conduct this study, a total of 628 students were sampled from two universities and from different social backgrounds. Students answered a questionnaire about their ethnic identity, self-esteem, and demographic background. The relationship between ethnic identity and self-esteem was examined and the most significant predictors of ethnic identity for Chinese Malaysian university students were discovered. Analysis revealed that national context as well as childhood and adolescence, as opposed to university education or context, play a key role in student ethnic identity formation. Keywords: ethnic identity, self-esteem, minority, social context, Malaysia

Highlights

Malaysia is an incredibly racially diverse country consisting of people from many backgrounds and ethnicities
Hypothesis 1 addressed whether there was a significant correlation between ethnic identity and self-esteem for students attending University of Malaya (UM), a predominantly non Chinese university and Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), a university dominated by Chinese Malaysian students
Umaña-Taylor and Shin’s (2007) study found that the relation between ethnic identity and self-esteem can vary by ethnic group and by social context, which is a somewhat different finding than the similar ethnic identity/self-esteem correlation this current study found in two different social contexts

Summary

Introduction

Malaysia is an incredibly racially diverse country consisting of people from many backgrounds and ethnicities Within all this diversity there are three distinct people groups that stand out as the largest in the country: Malay, Ethnic Identity a nd Self-Esteem of Chinese Malaysian University Students: Does University Social Context Matter?. It is essential to view the identity of this ethnic Chinese group as an entity and to determine the factors that play important roles in the formation of this identity —especially among young adults—as this information will have many repercussions on the nation of Malaysia in multiple areas, namely politically, socially and economically (shown in Wan Husin, 2013; Ting, 2014; Tan, 2005). This study of the ethnic identity of Chinese Malaysian young adults intends to explore some unique differences of ethnic identification within this seemingly homogenous, but diverse, minority group

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