This study investigates education policy in Malaysia aimed at achieving national integration across ethnic groups. The analyses are framed by theoretical considerations of ethnicity, nation, nation-building and plural society and the role of education policy in relation to them. The historical analyses demonstrated the ongoing effects of colonial residues in contemporary education policy and the ongoing ethnic-based contestation around the policy and accommodative state strategies utilised. The interview analyses demonstrated the contested nature of the concept of integration, tensions in the...