ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how language and education policies have fluctuated between assimilation and multiculturalism since independence by ambiguously incorporating Malay cultural dominance (the basis of assimilation) and the recognition of non-Malay cultural rights (the basis of multiculturalism). Policies between the 1960s and 1980s, which were Malay-centric but still recognised non-Malay cultural rights, are described as a form of a soft assimilation. Beginning in the 1990s, policies increasingly recognised non-Malay cultural rights while maintaining the hegemonic status of Malay culture. These policies are described as a form of an accommodative multiculturalism. This shift towards multiculturalism has been sustained.
