Fostering inter Group Contacts among multiracial students in higher education

Abstract

Banks (l995) names prejudice reduction as one of five dimensions of multicultural education. Within this context, a study on the role of curriculum programmes in fostering intergroup contacts among the multiracial students of higher education was conducted in Univcrsiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor. The main purpose of this study was to determine the level of knowledge(K), attitude(A) and practice(P) of students from difference ethnic groups in fostering intergroup contacts. A total number of 130 undergraduate students participated in the study. The study revealed that the students fall into the medium level of knowledge (3.22), attitude (3.67) and practice (3.39) towards fostering intergroup contacts. Spearman correlation coefficient test results showed there is no significant relationship between the levels of KAP across gender and race. Conversely, analyses of ANOVA divulged a significant racial group difference in the levels of knowledge; meanwhile attitude and practice had no significance racial group difference in fostering intergroup contacts. It is hoped that the findings on the levels of KAP in fostering intergroup contacts among the multiracial students would provide significant information where the Issues of multiculturalism is concern.