The locus of Buddhist pedagogy and decolonising the ‘Thai university’
Issued Date
2024-01-01
Resource Type
ISSN
14767724
eISSN
14767732
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85200034515
Journal Title
Globalisation, Societies and Education
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Globalisation, Societies and Education (2024)
Suggested Citation
Ray A., Singsuriya P., Prathomwong P., Charoenwong W. The locus of Buddhist pedagogy and decolonising the ‘Thai university’. Globalisation, Societies and Education (2024). doi:10.1080/14767724.2024.2384050 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/100248
Title
The locus of Buddhist pedagogy and decolonising the ‘Thai university’
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Abstract
The conjoint processes of nation-building and the construction of a homogenous national culture in Thailand have often leveraged Buddhism as a unifying force and cultural heritage of the Thai people. Owing to this, Buddhist pedagogy has been integrated into the Thai national curriculum, and accordingly, the modern Thai education system is steeped in Buddhist values. This is at odds with the modern-secular registers of pedagogy modelled after the Enlightenment project. Departing from here, this paper seeks to understand: how is the Buddhist religious order integrated into the “modern” Thai higher educational system? How, and how far, does it coexist with(in) the so-called modern universities, and what are its implications? Conversely, how do the “modern” curricula sit with Buddhism, both as an epistemology and a religious faith? Further, how does this then bear upon the line between the traditional-religious and the secular-modern as imagined from within the framework of the modern-secular episteme?.
