Anchored upon a renewed rites of passage perspective, this study employs a narrative inquiry to understand how professional identities are enacted, developed, negotiated, and reconstructed among final year STEM undergraduates in Malaysia. While professional identities are largely studied within the workplace or organisational context, there is…

In 2006, the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia, recommended that all public institutions of higher learning in the country incorporate soft skills formation into their curricula. This qualitative study aimed to explore Malaysian students' expectations of university education with a special focus on the acquisition of soft skills and to…

This study surveys 200 Malay students enrolled in three Chinese primary schools in relation to three issues, i.e., parental choice of schooling, learning processes and inter-ethnic friendship patterns. The three issues are explored through a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. Parental expectations for their…

The goal of this paper is to understand, by way of a life history of one low-income working-class youth, how globalization impacts the working class in a developing nation. The concept of globalization and the method of life history seem diametrically opposed. Globalization is an idea about large social forces that impact the economic and material…

While the occupational aspirations of Malay and Chinese male students in the secondary schools reveal fairly similar configurations, the socio-economic expectations of Malays are higher and largely independent of social class origins. (Authors)

Malaysia is realizing that it can no longer depend on the generosity of past colonial masters and present trading partners to meet its higher education needs. It must prepare to pay the full cost of higher education, either abroad or in its own severely limited educational facilities. (MSE)