A Study on Educational Integration in the Multicultural Context of Malaysia: An Analysis of the Current Situation of Chinese PhD Students

Abstract

Malaysia, as a typical multicultural country, actively promotes cultural integration in the field of education to cultivate talents with a global perspective and cross-cultural communication abilities. In order to better achieve educational integration, Malaysia, from the government to universities, is emphasizing the concept of multicultural education, strengthening cross-cultural communication and cooperation, enhancing the ability of teachers to provide multicultural education, while also emphasizing balance and fairness. This study specifically analyzes PhD students from China in order to understand their degree of adaptation to multicultural living and learning during their doctoral studies in Malaysia, ultimately interpreting the feelings and experiences of Chinese PhD students towards educational integration, and providing some reference for the diversified development of education in Malaysia and even globally. The premise of educational integration is to adapt to local culture and society. Studies have shown that general life, cultural, and social adjustments are the main challenges for Chinese PhD students to adapt to life in Malaysia. For Chinese PhD students, the challenge of successfully integrating Malaysia’s multiculturalism with education and learning is still quite daunting. The first priority is language and cultural adaptation. Some Chinese PhD students who have successfully adapted to the multicultural background of Malaysia’s educational integration shared how they have adopted more proactive strategies to adapt to the difficulties and challenges encountered, and have persevered. These strategies provide reference and guidance for other Chinese PhD students who need to improve their adaptability.

Received: 30 October 2024 | Revised: 12 February 2025 | Accepted: 27 March 2025

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares that she has no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Education Malaysia Global Service Centre at https://educationmalaysia.gov.my/more/student-data/international-student-data

Author Contribution Statement

Xiujuan Zhang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing- original draft, Writing-review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration.