Abstract Within the research landscape of language governance in Global South countries, Malaysian Chinese education presents a unique survival and development trajectory. This study examines Malaysian Chinese education policy evolution since 1957, employing critical language policy theory and postcolonial governance frameworks through policy discourse analysis and historical institutionalism. The research reveals that Malaysian Chinese education achieved strategic transformation from “cultural defense” to “governance participation,” forming distinctive “resilient governance.” This manifests as a “dual-embeddedness” mechanism: at the ethnic political level, Chinese education maintains language rights through institutionalized resistance; at the globalized economic level, it transforms into developmental resources for nation-building. The independent Chinese secondary school system embodies agentic governance strategies of marginalized languages, while government attitudes shifted from “tolerance” to “utilization,” reflecting Global South countries’ reconceptualization of cultural diversity in linguistic modernization. Theoretical contributions include proposing “resilient governance,” enriching marginalized language agency within governance theory, and constructing the “dual-embeddedness” analytical framework for understanding language policies in multilingual Global South societies. The practical significance provides a “Malaysian model” for addressing tensions between linguistic diversity and national unity, offering insights for constructing inclusive language governance systems.
Mao et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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