Indifference to Modern Education in a Thai Farming Community
Programs which seek to “modernize” the school systems of foreign countries must, inevitably, reckon with the indigenous assumptions concerning education. The following essay enquires into a cluster of assumptions found in Thailand, which establish the nature of knowledge, teaching, and learning. Wit...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1960
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| In: |
Practical anthropology
Year: 1960, Volume: 7, Issue: 1, Pages: 18-29 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Programs which seek to “modernize” the school systems of foreign countries must, inevitably, reckon with the indigenous assumptions concerning education. The following essay enquires into a cluster of assumptions found in Thailand, which establish the nature of knowledge, teaching, and learning. With these concepts as defined in Thai culture, we seek to account for the apathetic reception of modern education among the rice-farmers of Bang Chan, a community of some 1600 people in the central plains near Bangkok. The data were collected during a study of this community in 1953–54, sponsored by Cornell University. We refer especially to Bang Chan, although conditions there differ only in detail from neighboring Thai communities. Our first section describes the traditional assumptions concerning education in general and then we turn to the sequence where Bang Chan meets the various steps toward compulsory education promulgated by the central government. A third section dwells on the interaction of government, teachers, farmers, and pupils in the current scene and, finally, we reconsider the assumptions concerning education to explain the evident indifference of Thai farmers. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Practical anthropology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/009182966000700103 |