Leading Learning among the Indigenous Orang Asli Students: Setting the Scene

Abstract

This paper highlights the initializing stage of a Grounded Theory research that focusses on how some students from the Indigenous Orang Asli community survived deficit theorizing; a theorizing approach that rationalizes the learning disengagement among them. Influenced by arguments of the anti-deficit thinkers, this research seeks to understand the situation from the perspective of strength. Research sampling was purposeful, within the context of theoretical sampling following the Grounded Theory method. The main data was provided by participants who have reached the tertiary level education. Although, data has been gathered through unstructured interviews with sixteen (16) participants, this paper presents the experience of the key researcher in the initial exploratory data collection from fieldwork, and findings from two in-depth unstructured interviews with the first participant, which sets the scene for the subsequent research process. The main aim is to describe how the GT research took start. The final findings are expected to provide an in-depth knowledge of the leading learning process among the successful Orang Asli students; providing lessons learned for students, parents, teachers, schools, community, and policy makers to consider for the betterment of the Indigenous education. The study will contribute to the body of literature that supports strength-based practice for the continuous improvement of the Indigenous Orang Asli community.