Browsing by Subject "minority"

Research on the ethnic Malay minority in Singapore has attempted to examine the issue of the community’s academic underachievement over the years tend to only look at it through the lens of historical and socio-political factors. This exploratory study is thus to contribute to the limited literature on Malays in Singapore from a socio-psychological perspective, especially in relation to Malay ethnic identification, perceptions of prejudice, and academic underachievement. Results of the study show that beliefs about ethnic injustice, but not academic performance, had more of an effect on psychological disengagement among ethnic Malay-Muslim students in Singapore. Higher ethnic identification predicted greater psychological disengagement, particularly discounting processes, as well as accounted for lower academic self-concept in general and also in the two subscales of academic confidence and academic effort. Rather than used as a justification to continue the harmful narrative of ‘cultural deficit’ and ‘minority mindset’, it is hoped that knowing the relationship between ethnic identification and academic self-concept and psychological disengagement processes in the academic domain would help inform future research in finding new targeted ways to counter these behaviours and increase achievement.

Language and identity go together in an inextricable manner, and this thesis examines two novels which have tried to depict the complicated lives of characters who use more than one language, as they face discrimination for doing so, and even for lacking skills in one of their languages. I compare and contrast the uses of Chicano English in The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo by Oscar Zeta Acosta (1989) and of African American English (also known as Vernacular English) in a recent novel, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2017). The protagonists in both novels frequently engage in code-switching, and both characters reflect on their language choices as they seek to find their identity. Borrowing insights from Sociolinguistics, this literary analysis focuses on life changing situations for the characters, where they are depicted as being in an “in-between” space, banished from both cultures. I propose that it is this banishment, which initially acts as a source of shame for the characters and thus prevents them from having a clear identity, that ultimately leads them to question themselves into defining who they are. Both of the protagonists learn to turn the source of shame into a source of pride. In spite of the fact that the novels were written nearly thirty years apart, the analysis reveals that they have much in common, thus acting as a reflection of the struggles people from minorities have to go through in today’s society. Therefore, it is fundamental that we teach future generations about such struggles and create a world where bilingualism—even imperfect bilingualism or multilingualism—is readily accepted, making it easier for people to embrace all sides of themselves.

This thesis studies the discussion over the Estonian citizenship issue in the United Nations (UN) and in Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from 1993 to 1997. The citizenship question refers to a case, where Estonia, according to its state-continuum paradigm, restored its pre-Soviet citizenship legislation. As a consequence, all people residing in its territory, besides people eligible for citizenship according to the pre-Soviet law, became stateless. The case of Estonian citizenship is part of the bigger paradigm change in minority questions in post-Cold War world. The thesis’ primary sources are gathered from public online archives of the aforementioned organisations. The sources consist of correspondences and other relevant documents related to the topic. The sources are analysed by small-state realism and strategic culture theories, which help to analyse the internal factors, i.e., the long-term ambition of politically allying with the West and the trauma of Soviet occupation, that had an effect Estonia’s use of language in diplomatic arenas. This framework is then combined with speech-act theory and new rhetoric’s audience centricity, which reveal the external factors that determined the factors that had to be considered in manifesting the national-strategy. Comparing the speech-acts from two separate forums reveals how a big state affects the use of language of a small-state. In the UN, Estonia mainly defends its citizenship policy against Russia’s torrent of human rights accusations related to mainly Russian speaking non-citizens in Estonia – even though the UN found no signs of arbitrary deprivation of citizenship nor human rights infringements. In the OSCE the lack of contestation results in mutually cooperative relationship aiming to integrate non-citizens via the framework provided by Estonia. In the end, Estonia is able to defend its citizenship policy on both fronts.

International degree students sojourning in Finland’s Helsinki Capital Region may acquire skills in two official languages: Finnish and Swedish, respectively spoken natively by 79.9% and 5.8% of the region’s population. This study uses 114 web survey responses from students enrolled in English-medium Master’s programmes to determine whether they report knowledge of Finnish and especially of Swedish, a minority language. The likelihood a respondent reports knowledge of a local language is predicted by a model of language acquisition used on immigrant populations in bilingual countries, a model in which local language skills are considered to be a source of both social and economic capital. Over 90% of participants stated they had Finnish abilities while 21% reported having non-native Swedish skills. Almost all of those who declared being able to speak some Swedish could also speak some Finnish, a language for which they generally reported higher skills. Knowledge of Finnish was primarily associated with having a Finnish-speaking partner, living outside of a student neighborhood and originating from Russia or Central Asia. Knowledge of Swedish was mainly associated with studying in a primarily Swedish-language institution, being male and regarding as likely to live in a Nordic country in 5 years. While Finnish dominates most spheres of social life in the Helsinki Capital Region, it appears an institution of study provided sufficient exposure to the minority language of Swedish to explain in part its acquisition by international degree students. While learning Swedish was not compulsory in their study programme, respondents enrolled at a Swedish-language institution were as much as 16 times more likely than those studying at a Finnish-language institution to report knowledge of Swedish. Consequently, for newcomers like international degree students to adopt the minority language of their bilingual host community, involvement in institutions where the language is dominant might be key.