Language politics, education, and ethnic integration: the pluralist dilemma in Singapore

Governments of ethno-linguistically diverse societies face a difficult dilemma in opting for which language to use in the education system. While allowing each ethnic group to use its own language is seen as vital for cultural preservation and increasingly as a basic human right, it may also inadvertently undermine social cohesion by contributing to de facto segregation of schools. But does educational segregation really beget social segregation, especially in the presence of opportunities for inter-ethnic contact beyond schools? Using social network data from Facebook, we leverage a unique feature of Singapore’s education system to examine that question. We find that alumni from four de facto segregated secondary schools do have less ethnically diverse social networks than their peers from comparable but integrated schools, even years after graduation. This effect exists despite the multitude of intrusive public policies designed to induce inter-ethnic integration beyond the education system in Singapore, suggesting that schooling plays a particularly pronounced role in the identity formation process.