Negotiating discourses of gender, ethnicity and schooling: ways of being Malay, Chinese and Indian schoolgirls in Malaysia

Abstract

This article uses the notion of resistance as an analytical tool, emphasizing its sociopolitical significance and multidimensionality, to understand the complex link between ways of being Malay, Chinese and Indian schoolgirls, schooling and the wider Malaysian society. The macro and micro dynamics of the Malaysian ethnoscape, namely the ethnic politics, provide a non‐Eurocentric context to add to contemporary understandings of resistance. The empirical data on which the discussion is based is drawn from a larger study that examined differences and similarities in personal and collective identities in ways of knowing and being Malaysian schoolgirls within the context of schooling as an institutional practice. The author argues in this article that these Malaysian girls display active and passive resistance in negotiating discourses of schooling, discourses of the politics of ethnic identification and discourses of gender that position them ethnically. Ways of being Malay, Chinese and Indian girls are interpreted and enacted via discourses of ethnicity in Malaysia. The findings of this study reiterate the need to investigate the interplay of multiple social dimensions in the notion of resistance.