RELATIONSHIP AMONG RACES IN PENANG MATRICULATION COLLEGE

(KMPP)

RESEARCHER :

1. N

2. N

3. M

4. L

PRACTICUM GROUP : A2P1

SEMESTER 2 2009/2010
ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to finish out the relationship among races Penang Matriculation

College (KMPP). Further information is derived from questionnaire which was administered

to 35 students, ranging from bumiputera to non-bumiputera. This questionnaire consists of

three parts of elicitations; Part A about the respondent’s background, Part B about the amount

of friends from other races and Part C about the respondent’s opinion which is related with

the issues. The research shows that KMPP students are very unite with their friends from the

different races and they feel very happy to live under one roof.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Thank God! Our group is able to complete the assignment successfully. Firstly we want

to thank to our English lecturer, Pn. Zaiton bt Yusof who helped us a lot to succeed this job.

Furthermore, she also gave us some useful information to enable us to cope the problems and

the challenges that we faced in doing this mini thesis.

Besides that, we also never forget to thank to our other English lecturers who had also

helped us so much and our classmates who had also supported us spiritually and also had

contributed us many ideas.

INTRODUCTION
 Relationship among races is very crucial to our country, as our country is multi-races.

We can interact with each other without any problem. Besides, we can also learn about the

culture of other races and respect their culture. Many of us nowadays, feel enjoy and

comfortable when hanging out with their friends from different races during weekends. This

situation will strengthen the relationship between our friend from different races. But they

are also have some people face difficulty to start a conversation with friend from different

races. One of the factor is they feel difficult to adapt or do not understand the languages

used by their friends.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Race is defined by Hofstede (1980) as “The major divisions of humankind in an

environment”. Races evolve as a form of advance from instinctive behaviour to learn.

Patterns of this behaviour may be acquired and transmitted from one individual and
generation to another, and finally develop into a system of things and events. In Malaysia,

we have many different races such as Malay, Chinese, Indian and the other from Sabah and

Sarawak. All of the races were responsible to develop Malaysia to emulate with the other

country in the world.

There have been several categories on the characteristic of culture outlined by scholars

for studying the different races. Prominent among them are those by Harris and Moran

(1979), who outlined the categories of : Communication and Language, Dress and

Appearance, Relationships, and Belief and Attitudes.

Harris and Moran (1979) followed by developing a second approach, which is called

“The System Approach”. Here, they see culture as a combination of correlated parts which

form a unitary whole. The elements include the kinship system, educational system,

association system, and health and recreational system.

“ The unity existing among the major races must be strengthened further”, said Women,

Family, and Community Development and MIC deputy president Dato’ G. Palanivel,

according to the Tamil Nesan reported. He said, it was important to ensure that the people

were united and lived happily without problems among the races. He said that the open

houses held during each festival helped to strengthen unity and better understanding among

the people. He also said that MIC branches and other Indian organisations throughout the

country should organise such gatherings so that people in the area could together to forge

better understanding and work together to find solutions for outstanding problems.

METHODOLOGY
The study was a non-experimental descriptive research or study that attempted to look into

the relationship among races. It involved both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data.

The subject of this study consisted of 35 students of various races from all three courses,

namely Biology, Physics and Accounting. All of them were chosen to answer the

questionnaire. All the students were between 19 to 20 years old.

The instruments used in this study is questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed for

the collection of data with regards to the relationship among races in KMPP.

The questionnaire were distributed to 35 randomly selected students in KMPP . The

questionnaires ware collected from them the following day to give them the ample time to

study and complete it.

FINDINGS

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
 The sample for this research study consists of 35 students from Kolej Matrikulasi Pulau

Pinang. These students required to answer the questionnaire to provide us some information

about the participants. They consist of bumiputera and non-bumiputera students from three

different courses. The data obtain through this questionnaire has been analyzed using

descriptive statistics. The first part of the questionnaire asked about the respondent’s

background. So the students’ or respondents’ profile is as below:

Table 1 Respondents’ Background

Variable Frequency Percentage(%)

Gender Male 10 28.57
Female 25 71.43
Total 35 100

Ethnicity Bumiputera 22 62.86

Non-Bumiputera 13 37.14
Total 35 100

Referring to table 1,the number of respondents is 35;10 male students and 25 female

students. The students were chosen at random. 22 students were bumiputera and 13 students

were non-bumiputera.

The second part of the questionnaire asked question about the amount of friends from

other races. The analysis of the question is as below:

Table 2 How many friend from other races do you have?

Amount of friends Frequency Percentage(%)

None 0 0
Less than 3 8 22.86
4-8 20 57.14
9-15 2 5.71
More than 15 5 14.29
Total 35 100

Based on the table above, every student got friend from different races. 8 students have

less than 3 friends , 20 students have 4-8 friends, 2 students have 9-15 friends and 5 students

have more than 15 friends from other races.

The third part of the questionnaire asked questions about the respondent’s opinion which

is related with the issue. The analysis of each question is as below:

Table 3 The idea of The Government to give a chance to non-bumiputera students to

further study

at Matriculation Colleges is a good suggestion

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 7 20.00
Disagree 2 5.71
Neutral 9 25.72
Agree 3 8.57
Strongly Agree 14 40.00
Total 35 100
 Based on the table above 20% of students strongly disagree with the suggestion, 5.71% of

students disagree with the suggestion, 25.72% of students neutral with the suggestion, 8.57%

of students agree with the suggestion and 40% of students strongly agree with the suggestion.

Table 4 Friends from different races respect your culture

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 0 0
Disagree 2 5.71
Neutral 8 22.86
Agree 14 40.00
Strongly Agree 11 31.43
Total 35 100

The table above shows no student said strongly disagree, 2 students said disagree, 8

students said neutral, 14 students said agree and 11 students said strongly agree.

Table 5 Feel enjoy and comfortable when hanging-out with your friends from different

races during weekend.

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 2 5.71
Disagree 0 0
Neutral 16 45.71
Agree 12 34.29
Strongly Agree 5 14.29
Total 35 100
 The table above shows , 2 students said strongly disagree, no student said disagree, 16

students said neutral, 12 students said agree and 5 students said strongly disagree.

Table 6 Make friends with other races can improve our language.

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 1 2.86
Disagree 1 2.86
Neutral 5 14.28
Agree 19 54.28
Strongly Agree 9 25.72
Total 35 100

Based on the table 6, 2.86% of students said strongly disagree, 2.86% of students said

disagree, 14.28% of students said neutral, 54.28% students said agree and 25.72% of students

said strongly agree.

Table 7 Can cooperate well with members from different races in a group’s activity

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 1 2.86
Disagree 3 8.57
Neutral 7 20.00
Agree 16 45.71
Strongly Agree 8 22.86
Total 35 100
 Based on the table above, 2.86% of students said strongly disagree, 8.57% of students said

disagree, 20% of students said neutral, 45.71% of students said agree and 22.86% of students

said strongly agree.

Table 8 It is difficult to start a conversation with friends from different races.

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 7 20.00
Disagree 9 25.72
Neutral 13 37.14
Agree 4 11.43
Strongly Agree 2 5.71
Total 35 100

Based on the table above, 7 students said strongly disagree, 9 students said disagree, 13

students said neutral, 4 students said agree, and 2 students said strongly agree.

Table 9 Always celebrate the different race’s festivals such as their open houses.

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 5 14.29
Disagree 5 14.29
Neutral 20 57.14
Agree 3 8.57
 Strongly Agree 2 5.71
Total 35 100

The table above shows 14.29% of students said strongly disagree, 14.29% of students

said disagree, 57.14% of students said neutral, 8.57% of students said agree and 5.71% of

students said strongly agree.

Table 10 Your friends from different races are always concern and care about your

problems.

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 0 0
Disagree 2 5.71
Neutral 20 57.14
Agree 10 28.58
Strongly Agree 3 8.57
Total 35 100

Table 10 shows no students said strongly disagree, 2 students said disagree, 20 students

said neutral, 10 students said agree and only 3 students said strongly agree.

Table 11 You like to live with them under one roof.

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 1 2.86
Disagree 4 11.43
Neutral 20 57.14
 Agree 6 17.14
Strongly Agree 4 11.43
Total 35 100

The table above shows only 1 student said strongly disagree, 4 students said disagree, 20

students said neutral, 6 students said agree and 4 students said strongly agree.

Table 12 You think that having friends from different races is a good opportunity.

Frequency Percentage(%)
Strongly disagree 2 5.71
Disagree 2 5.71
Neutral 8 22.86
Agree 12 34.29
Strongly Agree 11 31.43
Total 35 100

Based on the table above, 2 students said strongly disagree, 2 students said disagree, 8

students said neutral, 12 students said agree and 11 students said strongly agree.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

From our study, we have found out how is the relationship among races in KMPP.

From the survey, we found that the majority of respondents strongly agreed that the idea of

the government to give a chance to non-bumiputera students to further study at Matriculation

Colleges is a good suggestion. The majority of them also agreed that their friends from

different races respect their culture. Most of them said neutral on feeling enjoy and

comfortable when hanging-out with their friends from different races during weekend.

From the questionnaire answered by the students, more than 50% of students said agree

that make friends with other races can improve their language. Our findings also show that

the majority of respondents agreed that they can cooperate well with members from different

races in a group’s activity. But, seems that the students feel a difficult to start a conversation

with friends from different races when there are only 17.14% of respondents said agree and

strongly agree to that statement.

From the analysis that we did, only 5.71% of respondents said strongly agree that they

always celebrate the different race’s festivals and 57.14% of them just answered neutral to

that statement. Amazingly, no respondent thinks that their friends from different races did

not care and concern about their problems. Means that, the students in KMPP are always

care and concern about their friend’s problem even they came from different races and

backgrounds.

Clearly from our findings, majority of the respondents feel neutral to live with friends

from different races under one roof. The majority of them also agreed that having friends

from different races is a good opportunity.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

From the study that we have conducted, we have found that students in KMPP can accept

to study together with friends from different races in one place and feel comfortable to that

condition. They think that having friends from different races is a good opportunity to

improve their language as every race has their own language.

Furthermore, for them, there are no resistance to be cooperate and interact among each

other. Even they are from different races, they still can be caring and concern on each other.

Therefore, we can conclude that, the relationship among races in KMPP is very good and still

can be improve.

REFERENCES