Do you understand the need for multiracial integration?
Many young Singaporeans who took the survey, more than 50% in fact, agreed that they had a considerable understanding about multiracial integration. This is because it is compulsory for students in Singapore to take moral education and social studies in their primary schools, which has a curriculum focused on multiracialism. This allows many students in Singapore to have a greater understanding of racial integration during their early learning years.
How many friends of different races do you have?
Inferring from the results of this question, an extremely small number of students(4%) in Singapore had no friends of another race. The rest of the surveyees had at least 1 or more friends of another race. This could obviously be due to inter-racial interaction that many students experience in school. Students are required to cooperate and make friends with people of other races in their daily school life, thus this answer comes as no surprise.
How well do you communicate with people of different races outside of work/school?
This question yielded intriguing answers, seeing that almost no one steered towards the extremes in terms of choice of answer. 88% of the surveyees chose either of the middle two answers, which were "Average" and "Quite Good" respectively. Out of these two answers, the majority(61%) went for "Quite Good". Communication between people of different races is becoming more commonplace, especially among the younger generation which do so daily in school, thus this comes as no surprise.
How many times a year do you celebrate a different race's festival?
For this questions, the results that came in were quite surprising, with the answers heavily leaning towards the first and second options, which are "Never" and "1-2 times" respectively. These answers could be due to the fact that students nowadays have little spare time to actually go out and celebrate with his/her friend of another race. This lack of time, as you would see later, also applies to the adults who took the tier 2 survey.
Had you made an effort to integrate with friends/neighbors of a different race?
The replies to this question was almost equally spread out between the second and third options (once or twice/several times). Most students in Singapore can be seen to have an average level of communication with neighbors of different races. Although such a level of communication is limited by many factors, the largest limiting factor would be the lack of a need to go out and do so, as people nowadays have increasing less interaction with their neighbors.
Did you ever learn a language from another race?
For this question, one can see the surveyees being spread out between three main 'camps', one for each of the first 3 answers, "Never", "Tried but Failed" and"Still Trying". Only a measly 9% went for "Already Learnt". This may be due to the fact that most students in Singapore already have a second language (Mother Tongue). Because of this, many students may not have the ability to take up another language, although the Ministry of Education does set up third language centres for gifted students, which make up only 3% of the student population.
Do you feel that early racial education is necessary in preventing racial disputes later in life?
For this question, we could see an overwhelming number of surveyees (88%) going for the last two options, "Quite Important" and "Extremely Important". This shows that most students today do understand that racial education has played a part in the building of their nation, and that it has impacted them in many different ways. However, compared with the adult survey results, students seem to be more relaxed in terms of choice of answer, unlike the adults which voted overwhelmingly (95%) for "Extremely Important". This may be because, unlike the adults, many students haven't yet experienced firsthand the problems that arose in the past when there was much racial distrust.
How important do you think racial integration is in our society?
Again, this question had an overwhelming number of people (85%) opting for the last two options, "quite/extremely important". This may be attributed to the fact that many young Singaporeans have had social studies lesson, which taught about how racial harmony had allowed Singapore to evolve from a third world country to a first world country in less than half a century, and how a lack of racial tolerance in the past had led to numerous bouts of racial violence. The knowledge of these had no doubted changed the way Singaporean students view the concept of racial integration.
Do you feel that society can be greatly improved if the dividing lines between different races are eliminated?
This question's responses came as no surprise, with the majority saying that society could be decently or greatly improved if the dividing lines between different races are eliminated. This clearly shows that many people feel that there is still room for improvement when it comes to racial integration.
Do you feel that you can make a difference in contributing to a multiracial society, and if so, to what extent?
The results from this question was both unexpected and interesting, with 70% of the surveyees saying that they had made either a small or considerable contribution towards creating a multiracial society. One might link this to the interpretation that a large number of students feel that their contributions would definitely be recognized. |
