Parents’ Role in the Ethnic Socialization of Youth in Malaysia

Su-Hie Ting

doi:10.3390/youth2010006

Abstract

The study examines the influence of the ethnic background on the parents’ role in the ethnic socialization of youths in Malaysia. A survey of 894 youths, who were aged 18–40 years, and who were from Malay, Chinese, Indigenous, and Indian ethnic backgrounds, was conducted. The questionnaire results show moderate levels of ethnic affiliation and parental socialization. The influence of other people in the ethnic socialization, namely, relatives other than the parents, as well as friends and other adults (teachers, neighbors, and people of the same religion), was limited. The parents of the youths were engaged in more positive ethnic socialization than negative ethnic socialization. The participants’ parents talked to them about cultural pluralism and cultural pride from once to several times a year, but the Indian participants reported frequencies of more than once per month. Conversations that prepared the participants for bias and that promoted mistrust occurred one to two times a year, but they occurred up to several times a year for the Indian participants. The parents of the Indigenous, Malay, and Chinese participants engaged in less frequent ethnic socialization. As a majority group, the Malay parents may have felt secure in their privileged status; however, the groups with immigrant backgrounds responded to their marginalized status in divergent ways with respect to the activeness of the parental ethnic socialization.

Highlights

Ethnic groups negotiate culturally diverse contexts in the development of their ethnicity, which includes making meaning in terms of discrimination and bias
A Kruskal–Wallis test was conducted to determine whether there is an effect of the ethnic background on the frequencies of the parental ethnic socialization activities, the frequencies of the activities of the other socialization agents, and the strengths of the ethnic affiliations
The present study has uncovered the ethnic socialization patterns that are unique to the ethnic groups living in Malaysia, and it reveals the negative ethnic socialization that is engaged in by the parents of the youths, in terms of preparing them for discrimination

Summary

Introduction

Ethnic groups negotiate culturally diverse contexts in the development of their ethnicity, which includes making meaning in terms of discrimination and bias. The members of an ethnic group are defined as a group of people who share a common culture, religion, language, or nationality [1]. In countries such as Malaysia, children grow up knowing that ethnic identity is “the most important point of reference right down to everyday conversations in which the assertion of one’s own and the other’s bangsa [ethnic group]-background is part and parcel of getting to know each other” [2]. Out of the 30 million people that make up the Malaysian population, Malay and Indigenous people account for 69.8%, but the minority groups with immigrant origins have smaller populations (Chinese, 22.4%; Indian, 6.8%: Other, 1%) [3]. The Malaysians of Chinese and Indian descent have to acknowledge ketuanan Melayu (Malay dominance) and cultural supremacy. Various ethnic groups in Malaysia have been careful about ethnic relations in order to avoid a repeat of the May 1969 Chinese–Malay clash and, far, there have been no incidents involving bloodshed

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion