Evaluation
of Political Concepts of Malaysian Chinese and Singaporean Chinese
Students Studying in U.S.A. and by Their American Counterparts
G. Koay & S. Slak |
The
purpose of the study was to assess the differences between Malaysian
(n = 50)and Singaporean (n =16) Chinese students studying in the
U. S. A. and their American counterparts (n =102) in the way they
evaluate a number of common political concepts on a bad-good scale
of a visual analog type. The political concepts used were: Communism,
Socialism, Colonialism, Imperialism, Democracy, Fascism, Nazism,
Totalitarianism, Neutralism, Anticommunism, Free Trade, Freedom,
Militarism, Internationalism, Patriotism, Nationalism, Terrorism,
and Racism. The concepts of Communism, Imperialism, Fascism, Nazism,
Militarism, Terrorism, and Racism were evaluated negatively and the
concepts of Democracy, Neutralism, Free Trade, Freedom, and Internationalism
positively by all three groups. In spite of considerable communality
of the evaluative meaning of political concepts across the three
national groups, significant differences between groups in at least
one out of three intergroup comparisons existed for 13 out of 18
concepts. The differences between the three national groups were
discussed in terms of some cultural and political characteristics
of the three respective countries. Some limitations of the results
were indicated.
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