National curricula articulate common civic purposes, but policy presence alone does not explain how educators interpret a mandate or how policy-relevant meanings become visible in school arrangements. This article examines national-identity education in a large multicultural day secondary school in southern Sarawak, Malaysia. It reports a focused secondary analysis of five complete semi-structured interviews with three teachers and two senior administrators, examined alongside a documentary evidence record drawn from six source categories reported in the parent study. The parent study’s interviews and document review were conducted between November 2025 and April 2026; the doctoral researcher completed the focused reanalysis during manuscript preparation from May to September 2026. Reflexive thematic analysis generated three themes organised around meaning selection, reported pedagogical translation and documented organisational provision. The documentary record is treated as evidence of authorised or recorded provision rather than observed implementation. Drawing on existing inscription scholarship, the article uses organisational inscription as a bounded analytical descriptor for policy-relevant formulations recorded in locally authoritative artefacts. By separating participant accounts, documentary provision and outcomes, the study offers a context-sensitive explanation of how national-identity education was interpreted and recorded in a Sarawak school.
Abdullah, A. R. (2006). Ethnicity and ethnic identity in Sarawak. Akademika, 67, 47–74. https://ejournals.ukm.my/akademika/article/viewFile/3014/1923
Ahmad, A., & Abdullah, N. A. T. (2022). Citizenship education: Challenges and possibilities in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(6), 1109–1129. https://doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v12-i6/14058
Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., & Braun, A. (2012). How schools do policy: Policy enactments in secondary schools. London, England: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203153185
Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., Braun, A., & Hoskins, K. (2011). Policy actors: Doing policy work in schools. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(4), 625–639. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2011.601565
Banks, J. A. (2008). Diversity, group identity, and citizenship education in a global age. Educational Researcher, 37(3), 129–139. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X08317501
Braun, A., Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., & Hoskins, K. (2011). Taking context seriously: Towards explaining policy enactments in the secondary school. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(4), 585–596. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2011.601555
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806
Brown, G. K. (2007). Making ethnic citizens: The politics and practice of education in Malaysia. International Journal of Educational Development, 27(3), 318–330. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2006.12.002
Coburn, C. E. (2001). Collective sensemaking about reading: How teachers mediate reading policy in their professional communities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(2), 145–170. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737023002145
Coburn, C. E. (2005). Shaping teacher sensemaking: School leaders and the enactment of reading policy. Educational Policy, 19(3), 476–509. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904805276143
Dewantara, J. A., Sulistyarini, Prasetiyo, W. H., Efriani, Riyanti, D., Afandi, & Ulfah, M. (2023). School teachers, national identity and an Indonesian–Malaysian border community: A case study in Entikong. Issues in Educational Research, 33(2), 510–528. https://www.iier.org.au/iier33/dewantara.html
Evagorou, M., Vrikki, M., & Papanastasiou, E. (2023). Students’ and teachers’ voice on the outcomes of a citizenship education curriculum. Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 22(2), 100–117. https://doi.org/10.1177/14788047231193917
Hamid, J. A., Esa, M. S., Ationg, R., Othman, I. W., Adam, S. D. S., Tamring, B. A. M., & Hajimin, M. N. H. (2021). Penerapan patriotisme dalam kalangan guru-guru Sejarah sekolah menengah di Sabah. International Journal of Law, Government and Communication, 6(23), 42–56. https://doi.org/10.35631/IJLGC.623003
Hong, J. J., & Lyu, Y. (2025). Not always a panacea: History education and identity-building in Taiwan. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 229, Article 106837. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106837
Jerome, C., & Ting, S.-H. (2026). Oohhaa! Kamek orang Sarawak: A glimpse into Sarawakians’ diverse perspectives on what it means to be Sarawakian. Kajian Malaysia, 44(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.21315/km2026.44.1.1
Kaspin, K. G., Hamzah, I. S., Abdullah, M. S., Marzuki, M., & Razali, N. A. (2024). Co-curriculum activities and national integration during the Movement Control Order in Malaysia. Jurnal Ilmiah Peuradeun, 12(2), 593–612. https://doi.org/10.26811/peuradeun.v12i2.1003
Lash, C. L. (2021). Multicultural citizenship education as resistance: Student political development in an anti-immigrant national climate. Teaching and Teacher Education, 105, Article 103405. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103405
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
Malterud, K., Siersma, V. D., & Guassora, A. D. (2016). Sample size in qualitative interview studies: Guided by information power. Qualitative Health Research, 26(13), 1753–1760. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315617444
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Ministry of Education Malaysia. (2013). Malaysia education blueprint 2013–2025: Preschool to post-secondary education. Putrajaya, Malaysia: Author. https://www.moe.gov.my/en/dasarmenu/pelan-pembangunan-pendidikan-2013-2025
Ministry of Education Malaysia. (2018). Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Menengah: Dokumen Standard Kurikulum dan Pentaksiran Sejarah Tingkatan 4. Putrajaya, Malaysia: Curriculum Development Division.
Mohd Tajuddin, F., Aboo Talib @ Khalid, K., & Amir Hamzah, S. (2024). The pedagogical approaches to shift ethnic boundaries: Exploring pedagogical experiences of Malaysian youths in school and university. Asian Journal of University Education, 20(2), 512–523. https://doi.org/10.24191/ajue.v20i2.27406
Muslim, N., & Rosadi, O. (2021). Peranan bahasa dalam pembinaan negara bangsa di Malaysia dan Indonesia. International Journal of the Malay World and Civilisation, 9(2), 79–89. https://doi.org/10.17576/jatma-2021-0902-08
Nordin, A. B., Alias, N., & Siraj, S. (2013). National integration in multicultural school setting in Malaysia. Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 1(1), 20–29.
Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847
Ostwald, K., & Subhan, M. S. (2021). Regional identity formation in Malaysia: Primacy of the political center and its essentialized ethnic identities. Asian Politics & Policy, 13(1), 37–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/aspp.12565
Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research & evaluation methods: Integrating theory and practice (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Ross, E. (2024). Teachers’ interpretation of curriculum as a window into ‘curriculum potential’. The Curriculum Journal, 35(1), 38–55. https://doi.org/10.1002/curj.239
Silseth, K., Hontvedt, M., & Mäkitalo, Å. (2023). Teachers’ enactment of policy in classrooms: Making students accountable through inscriptions from the curriculum in classroom interactions. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 38(2), 881–902. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-022-00610-3
Spillane, J. P., Reiser, B. J., & Reimer, T. (2002). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of Educational Research, 72(3), 387–431. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543072003387
Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Intai, L. A., & Hashim, A. T. (2026). Interpreting and Organising National-Identity Education: Reported and Documented Policy Enactment in a Sarawak Secondary School. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 15(3), 1887–1906.
Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
