Singapore’s Little Barangay: Cultural resistance against neoliberal education

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Civic futures in a digital age: Youth activism, cultural resistance, and glocal collaboration in Southeast Asia

Proposal

HFSE International School is the only Filipino international school located in an ASEAN nation outside of the Philippines. Founded by an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) family in Singapore, this institution provides low-fee private education for more than 400 students led by 38 faculty and staff members. This paper creates meaning behind the unique cultural context of HFSE, analyzing how the city-state’s neoliberal educational landscape interacts with the school’s OFW spirit . Through interviews with 44 students, faculty, staff, and parents of HFSE, the findings revealed a school culture that contrasts the market and performance-focused classrooms of Singapore.

At the end of 2023, several international news outlets reported that Singapore led the previous year's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, an assessment that compares the academic performance in reading, mathematics, and science of students across the globe (Bridger-Linning, 2023). Since PISA's conception, the Southeast Asian nation has led the world in several academic performance evaluations. Against the backdrop of these prestigious global accolades, researchers have found a highly decentralized and market-based educational landscape (Mok, 2003) defined by and a demand for creative and skilled laborers in a globalized society (Gopinathan, 2005; Sidhu, 2005; Tan 2008a). Within the classroom, the rise of neoliberalism manifests as increased emphasis on academic performance and the “co-option of the teacher’s soul” in favor of professionalism and consumer-buyer-like relationships between schools and families (Loh & Hu, 2019). Stephen Ball’s conceptual framework of performativity in neoliberal education (2003) embodies the modern structure of Singaporean education – this theory of performativity and the broader commodification of education, informs the research questions for this study.

However, where does HFSE and the Filipino community fall into this curriculum? Answering this question, as with any inquiry on race, is not so straightforward – especially due to the limited literature on race (and more specifically, Filipino migrants) in Singapore. Outside the classroom, Tupas (2021) explores the unique social challenges of Filipino-Singaporeans from a linguistic perspective. The colloquial language Singlish and the abundance of East Asian culture prevent Filipino-Singaporeans from properly engaging with national culture. This weak cultural identification with their surroundings results in higher levels of depression and poor knowledge of local resources and institutions (Ward, Chang, & Lopez-Nerney, 2020). However, how these experiences translate into a school context have yet to be studied.

With community-based research principles in mind (Strand et al., 2003; Francisco, 2014), this 10-week interview study began with a broad research objective to learn more about this underreported migrant community in Singapore. After informal classroom observations, conversations with families, faculty, and staff, and background research on peer institutions refined the research question: What is unique about the HFSE educational experience compared to other schools in Singapore? How does Filipino culture account for these differences? Interviews with 19 staff and faculty members, 18 students grades Primary 1 to Secondary 4, and 7 parents focused on their perceptions of community, culture, and environment within HFSE, comparing it to any other relevant educational experiences.

According to the founder of HFSE, the organization was originally created to provide home-schooling support to OFW families across Singapore. The letters “HFSE” stood for “Happy Family School of Excellence.” In the words of the founder, “‘Happy Family’ represents Filipino culture and ‘School of Excellence’ represents Singaporean culture… this school is a combination of the strengths of both.” In its almost decade-long history, HFSE continues to serve a predominantly Filipino and migrant student population through cultural immersion and a course schedule that combines both Filipino and Singaporean (Ministry of Education) curricula.
Initial findings and preliminary analyses of these conversations uncovered two main points of discussion: (1) positive perceptions of school community, relationships, and culture, and (2) celebratory education. Further coding of the qualitative data will likely demonstrate how these two institutional characteristics contrast Singapore’s norm of educational performativity.

Students and faculty members who previously attended or worked at local schools described a cultural shift when moving to HFSE. “The kids love to come and hug you in public, give you gifts, and joke around with you… relationships here are nothing like what you’d find in Singapore,” noted one local Singaporean teacher. For these students and teachers, the nature of relationships at HFSE exists outside of the bounds of the “professional” standard of local schools, one more representative of the “warmness” of school communities in the Philippines. These findings support previous research on how Filipino-Singaporeans in healthcare balance empathy commonly expressed in Filipino culture with Singapore's culture of professionalism in the workplace (Armith, 2019).

In addition to class time, HFSE supplements each student’s education with celebrations and events that occur once or twice a month. These non-academic sessions focus on holidays (such as national Filipino holidays) or community development (such as leadership camps and appreciation days for different members of HFSE). These monthly or bi-weekly celebrations come from two praxes: a manifestation of celebratory Filipino customs and a way to teach values, morals, and social skills outside of the classroom. Oftentimes, students will be encouraged to perform or present their non-academic skills (such as athleticism or art) during these events. Relationships between students and teachers are also bolstered through weeks of preparation for these events.

On one hand, these two institutional characteristics unique to HFSE represent the effective integration of Filipino cultural values into a Singaporean international school. On the other hand, these cultural practices demonstrate the school’s resistance to neoliberal educational practices (Loh & Hu, 2019; Ball, 2003). In lieu of fostering an environment founded on competition and professionalism, this Filipino-serving institution instead focuses on collaboration and character development. By rejecting the performative pressures that dominate Singapore’s educational landscape, HFSE provides an alternative model of schooling that challenges neoliberal norms. From the perspective of education in a digital society, performativity can be further understood in terms of how technology bolsters the standardization and marketization of schooling.

This study has broader implications for how Singaporean and Filipino culture interact as well as how school environments are influenced by both ethno-racial identity and economic forces.

Author

• Mark Allen Gabe Cu, Stanford University