Assimilation as multiracialism: The case of Singapore's Malays

The myths of meritocracy and multiracialism ‘explain’ between them both the ‘fairness’ of the Singapore system and the subordinate role of the non-Chinese minority races. They also purport to assure the minorities that they enjoy full status as members of the nation-building project and that their cultural and religious mores are embraced and protected within its framework. Using the Malay minority as its case study, and arguing from archival, oral, official government and secondary sources, this paper argues that the Singapore systems of meritocracy and multiracialism have not been concerned primarily with intercommunal tolerance since the 1970s, but are now programmes of assimilation of the racial minorities into a Chinese-dominated society.     

‘Are we to become a gender university?’ Facets of resistance to a gender equality project

Gender equality (GE) is something ‘we cannot not want’. Indeed, the pursuit of equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities for all women and men throughout a society freed from gendered oppression is widely visible in recent organizational GE initiatives. In practice, however, GE initiatives often fail in challenging gendered norms and at effecting deep‐seated change. In fact, GE measures tend to encounter resistance, with a gap between saying and doing. Using a GE project at a Swedish university, we examined the changing nature of reactions to GE objectives seeking to understand why gender inequality persists in academia. We used ‘resistance’ to identify multiple, complex reactions to the project, focusing on the discursive practices of GE. Focusing our contextual analysis on change and changes in reactions enabled a process‐oriented analysis that revealed gaps where change is possible. Thus, we argue that studying change makes it possible to identify points in time where gendered discriminatory norms are more likely to occur. However, analysing discursive practices does not itself lead to change nor to action. Rather, demands for change must start with answering, in a collaborative way, what problem we are trying to solve when we start a new GE project, in order to be relevant to the specific context. Otherwise, GE risks being the captive of consensus politics and gender inequality will persist.     

Ability vs Background: An Analysis of the Distribution Mechanism of Higher Education Enrolment Opportunities

Individual education performance is usually influenced jointly by ability and background (family background). The relative share of these two factors forms the basic grounds for judgments of educational equity. Using sheaf coefficients, we compare the influence of these two mechanisms on the distribution of access to regular first degree higher education opportunities for institutions at different levels. Our findings show that both ability and family background have a marked influence. The higher the level of the institution, the greater the ability demanded of its students. The effect of family also increases significantly at this level, but ability always has a much stronger influence than family background. It can be seen that though family background is influential in the distribution of higher education opportunities in China today, ability fundamentally remains the dominant criterion, embodying the classic features of a meritocratic society “open to talent.”     

Advancing careers through ‘merit’: a rationalized-sensemaking narrative in hierarchical organizations

ABSTRACT

This contribution provides an in-context exploration of how middle-managers make sense of their career progress, and particularly focuses on ‘merit’ to understand how careers are driven in a hierarchical organization. The study exposes ‘merit’ as a fragmented and individualized construction that links back to the participants’ broader life ambitions and identity footprint. It also shows a tendency for maintaining trust in ‘merit’ above other circumstantial and opportunity factors, even in face of events which undermine the application of the merit-based principle. ‘Merit’ is hence portrayed to be a rationalized narrative in careers’ trajectory; a marker used by participants to make sense of events in a coherent manner, consequently experiencing self-efficacy and reducing uncertainty. The findings add complexity to the ‘meritocracy’ debate, calling for new critiques which address its underlying inequality dimension while also contemplating the individual psychological purpose driving ‘merit’ beliefs.     

De-individualising autobiography: a reconsideration of the role of autobiographical life writing within disability studies

This article pursues a reconsideration of the role of autobiographical life writing within the context of disability studies. I respond to concerns that this genre tends toward a problematic and politically limiting individualism that undermines the consideration of disability as a social phenomenon, reproduces the depiction of disabled people as isolated outcasts, and replicates the meritocratic myths of personal achievement that dominate contemporary western capitalism. While not rejecting these concerns in their entirety, I attempt to develop a particular set of reading practices that may be productively employed to strategically work against the individualising tendencies of autobiographical life writing. These strategies include a commitment to seeing the realm of the ‘private’ as social, reading auto/biographically, and seeking to deconstruct the narrative myth of the liberal humanist ‘choosing’ subject. In conclusion, I offer a brief discussion of the particular ethical and methodological opportunities created by the greater consideration of these texts within disability studies.     

Education and Social Mobility in Postwar Japan: Trends and Some Institutional Aspects

Abstract  This paper examines the trend in social mobility in postwar Japan, especially focusing on the mediating role of education. The data set is derived from the SSM (Social Stratification and Social Mobility) surveys. Applying log-linear models to the data of five periods, we analyze the trend of the relationship among origin, education, and destination. Occupations are classified according to type of job, and son's first job is used for the analysis. The result reveals that the unmediating transmission of position has declined, and education is becoming a more significant mediator between origin and destination. These changes proceed in the form of reduction in the random sphere of 'movers' as well as replacement of 'stayers' with 'movers'. However, the association between origin and destination has hardly changed for several decades. This stablity results from the inequality in educational resources available to families and the specificities, not universality, of relations surviving into the higher level of education.     

“社会主义是什么”的理论探析

论述了从对马克思主义的错误的和教条式的理解中解放出来,是坚持共产党的先进性、建设中国特色社会主义的前提条件。认为,把西欧资本主义起源的历史概述教条主义地彻底变成一般发展道路的历史哲学理论、把生产力落后国家的无产阶级在夺取政权后所面临的主要任务错误地认定为建设新的社会主义的经济关系,是严重阻滞中国社会主义事业前进步伐的理论障碍。应该认识到中国特色社会主义并不是最后的斗争,而是在开展最后的斗争之前的另一场斗争。     

文本与现实的同构——新现实乡土叙事的文本分析

近些年的现实主义乡土小说,像《歇马山庄》、《农民帝国》、《天高地厚》,凸显了“权力”在文本结构中的意义。这是因为正面表现变革中的乡村的现实主义乡土小说无法逃避处在传统与现代之间的由能人治理的乡村现实,从而出现了文本与现实的同构,“权力”便恣肆在文本中了。     

Sex Discrimination in UK Academia

This article examines the gendered nature of employment in UK universities, showing women's experience of discrimination through differences in contract status and in access to academic hierarchies. It argues that the typical academic career path is structured according to a male perception of success: research‐active, participating in the Research Assessment Exercise, an uninterrupted career history. The system of meritocracy upon which appointment and promotion within academic are based, the article argues, reinforces such a masculine approach to career success. These meritocratic systems of inequality reflect and reproduce the discursive practices of masculinity that present disadvantages to a majority of women and some men.