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Students' Judgments of Historical Significance in Singapore Schools

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Students' Judgments of Historical Significance in Singapore Schools Students’ Judgments of Historical Significance in Singapore Schools: Positionalities and Narratives Angeline Jude Enk Sung Yeo A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2015 Reading Committee: Dr. Walter C. Parker, Chair Dr. Manka M.Varghese Dr. Ana M. Elfers Program Authorized to Offer Degree: College of Education © Copyright 2015 Angeline Jude Enk Sung Yeo University of Washington Abstract Students’ Judgments of Historical Significance in Singapore Schools: Positionalities and Narratives Angeline Jude Enk Sung Yeo Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Walter C. Parker College of Education Research has established that students’ ethnic, community, and national identities can influence their judgments on historical significance. Furthermore, it has demonstrated that students’ identities may incline them towards appropriating or resisting particular historical narratives when considering historical significance. In Singapore, little is known about how students think about and make judgments of historical significance as well as which aspects of their identity they draw upon to make these judgments. Using a qualitative case study approach that relies mainly on individual and focus group interviews, this study investigates how 15 secondary school students define their identities in Singapore and examines how these identities influence their judgments of the historical significance of persons and events in Singapore’s past. The key findings indicate that students in Singapore tend to position and locate themselves as multiracial i Singaporeans and draw upon a narrative template that complies with the official Singapore narrative to make judgments of significance. The study also reveals that the use of this narrative template has resulted in the development of reductionist views of the past among students. The findings of this research echo those of other research studies that have stressed that unless we attend to students’ interpretive frames at the point of their sense-making process, any effort made to promote and deepen their historical thinking might be negated by the misconceptions already engendered. The need to mediate this tension is particularly urgent in Singapore, where the task of educating the young regarding Singapore’s past coexists with the emphasis on developing their skills of historical inquiry. ii Table of Contents List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………… vi Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….. vii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………… viii CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1.1 Prelude…………………………………………………………………………….. 1 1.2 Historical consciousness and historical significance……………………………… 2 1.3 Why study historical significance?………………………………………………... 4 1.4 Identity and ideas about historical significance………………………………….... 6 1.5 The Singapore context…………………………………………………………….. 9 1.6 The Purpose of this study and research questions……………….……….……….. 14 1.7 Summary of findings……………………………………………………………… 15 1.8 Overview of chapters……………………………………………………………… 16 CHAPTER 2: Review of Literature and Conceptual Framework 2.1 The study of historical significance in history education: Two traditions………... 17 2.1.1 Structural and procedural focus……………………………………………... 17 2.1.1.1 Limitations of the structural and procedural focus.……………….. 24 2.1.2 Substantive focus…………………………………………………………… 25 2.1.2.1 Limitations of the substantive focus………………..…………….. 32 2.2 The conceptual framework of this study………………………………………….. 34 2.2.1 Positionality…………………………………………………………………. 34 2.2.2 Sociocultural perspectives…………………………………………………... 37 iii CHAPTER 3: Methodology 3.1 Qualitative case study design……………………………………………………... 40 3.2 Researcher’s role and position……………………………………………………. 42 3.3 Research site selection……………………………………………………………. 45 3.4 Research participants……………………………………………………………... 49 3.5 Access and permission……………………………………………………………. 51 3.6 Data collection methods…………………………………………………………... 52 3.6.1 Questionnaire……………………………………………………………….. 53 3.6.2 Interviews…………………………………………………………………… 55 3.6.2.1 First individual interview…………………………………………… 56 3.6.2.2 Focus group interview………………………………………………. 59 3.6.2.3 Second individual interview………………………………………... 61 3.6.3 Observations………………………………………………………………… 62 3.6.4 Document analysis………………………………………………………….. 63 3.7 Data analysis……………………………………………………………………… 63 CHAPTER 4: Findings on Students’ Positionalities 4.1 Narrating identity through a sense of belonging………………………………….. 68 4.1.1 Blunting religious, racial and language differences………………………… 68 4.1.2 Talking with family…………………………………………………………. 74 4.1.3 Safety among friends………………………………………………………... 77 4.1.4 Esprit de Corps through Co-curricular Activities…………………………... 79 4.1.5 Belonging to places…………………………………………………………. 82 4.1.5.1 School………………………………………………………………. 82 iv 4.1.5.2 Nation-state…………………………………………………………. 85 CHAPTER 5: Findings on Students’ Judgments of Historical Significance 5.1 Theme 1: “The start of everything”……………………………………………….. 93 5.2 Theme 2: The “deaths and suffering of Singapore must be remembered”……….. 97 5.3 Theme 3: “But look at us now!”………………………………………………….. 100 5.4 Theme 4: “You’re not completely safe right now”……………………………….. 103 5.5 Contexts, positionality and judgements of historical significance……………….. 106 5.6 Constraints of the narrative template……………………………………………... 110 5.6.1 Conflation and simplification……………………………………………….. 110 CHAPTER 6: Conclusion 6.1 Implications………………………………………………………………………... 116 6.1.1 Prevailing perceptions of students’ knowledge of history…………………… 116 6.1.2 History education in Singapore………………………………………………. 119 6.2 Limitations and future directions………………………………………………….. 123 References………………………………………………………………………………… 126 Appendix A…...…………………………………………………………………………... 139 Appendix B…...…………………………………………………………………………... 142 Appendix C…...…………………………………………………………………………... 144 Appendix D…...…………………………………………………………………………... 145 Appendix E…...…………………………………………………………………………... 146 Appendix F…...…………………………………………………………………………... 147 Appendix G…...…………………………………………………………………………... 148 v List of Tables Table 1: Summary of Participants by School……...……………………………………... 49 Table 2: Comparison of Ethnic Composition of Participants with National Proportion…. 50 Table 3: Summary of Profiles of Interview Participants……...…………………….……. 51 Table 4: Composition of Focus Groups………...….…………………………...………... 60 Table 5: Ancestry of Students……......………...………………………………………… 69 Table 6: Languages Spoken at Home, School, and with Friends……………………….... 71 Table 7: List of Students’ Co-curricular Activities……..……...……………………….... 79 Table 8: Pictures Chosen According to the Three Founding Points……..………………. 93 Table 9: Pictures Chosen that Show Death and Suffering……………..………….……... 97 Table 10: Pictures Chosen that Illustrate Success Against the Odds….………..…............. 101 Table 11: Pictures chosen that Illustrate Vulnerability and Vigilance…………………….. 103 Table 12: Top 10 Events Chosen by Students….…………………………………………. 117 vi Acknowledgements The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the patience, guidance and support of my Supervisory Committee. My deepest gratitude goes to my Chair and mentor, Dr. Walter Parker, who not only extended his warm friendship from my first day at UW, but also continuously challenged me to think out-of-the-box and to strive to meet high standards of scholarship. Many thanks to Dr. Varghese for her advice and the many insightful conversations that helped shape my thinking about identity and sociocultural theory. My sincere thanks to Dr. Ana Elfers, whose questions and comments pushed me to think more deeply about research contexts and methodologies. To Dr. LeiLani Nishime, thank you for taking that leap of faith in me and for opening my eyes to a new way of understanding multiculturalism in media representations. To the Ministry of Education, Singapore, as well as to the administrators, teachers and students at the schools that I worked with, thank you for supporting my research study. To my father- and mother-in-law, Jan Lin and Phyllis, thank you for the hours spent driving down to Seattle to support me. To my friends and staff at the College of Education, thank you for your friendship and love. Much gratitude goes to my husband Yung for his sacrifice and support. Last but not least, to my son Ezra, thanks for brightening up my life. vii Dedication To my family, Yung and Ezra. viii CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1.1 Prelude On the night of December 8, 2013, Singaporeans were transfixed by news of the outbreak of a riot in the Little India district over a fatal traffic accident involving a private bus and an Indian foreign worker. The scenes of rioters clashing with the police, overturning police cars, and setting the vehicles on fire were almost surreal for many Singaporeans, especially those born after 1970. The last riot Singapore had witnessed was the spill over of the May 13, 1969 race riots from Malaysia. As the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong remarked, “Singapore has not seen a riot like that for a very long time, and such incidents are beyond the living memory for most Singaporeans” (Lee, 2014). A few months later, in February 2014, diplomatic relations between Singapore and Indonesia were put to the test when Indonesia decided to name a naval warship after two dead Indonesian soldiers, Harun Said and Osman Mohamed Ali. While the soldiers are lauded as heroes in Indonesia, their names are a reminder
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