Education for the Production and Reproduction of Docile Bodies: The Problems of Civic Education in Thailand
over a decade, Thai traditional elites and old-style bureaucrats have stated thatthe problem of Thai political development derives from a lack of ‘citizenship’characteristics in Thai people. In their view, the best solution has been to educatethe masses and to cultivate civic education by teaching b...
| Published in: | Intellectual discourse |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
2020
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| In: |
Intellectual discourse
Year: 2020, Volume: 28, Issue: 1, Pages: 261-294 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | over a decade, Thai traditional elites and old-style bureaucrats have stated thatthe problem of Thai political development derives from a lack of ‘citizenship’characteristics in Thai people. In their view, the best solution has been to educatethe masses and to cultivate civic education by teaching both it and Thai ‘corevalues’ as a subject to students. As a result, the students have become patriotic"saviours". They are expected to be strong citizens who can solve the politicaldevelopment problem under the ‘Democratic Regime of the Government withthe King as Head of State’. This article seeks to understand the result of acurriculum including the two subjects of civic education and history which havebeen taught in Thai schools for 12 years, covering both primary and secondaryschools. What type of Thai citizen does this curriculum desire to produce andre-produce? The author rigorously analyzed a corpus of civic education andhistory textbooks and argues that the contents of these subjects are designed totransform students into ‘docile’ bodies. They have become "objects" which areordered and imposed on by the state ideology, which produces and re-producesthem to be ultra-royalists and ultra-nationalists. |
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| ISSN: | 2289-5639 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Intellectual discourse
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