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    Religious Influences in Thai Female Education (1889-1931)
    Religious Influences in Thai Female Education (1889-1931)
    Religious Influences in Thai Female Education (1889-1931)
    Ebook299 pages2 hours

    Religious Influences in Thai Female Education (1889-1931)

    By Runchana Pam Suksod-Barger

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    In this study Runchana Pam Suksod-Barger examines the impact of religion on female access to education in Thailand from 1889 to 1931--the early Modernization Period in Thailand. Although Thailand had traditionally been a Buddhist nation-state, Protestant missionaries during this era arrived in the country to convert Thais to Christianity. The Protestant belief in literacy so that everyone could read the Bible opened up educational opportunities for Thai girls that were not previously available to them. Suksod-Barger investigates the degree to which Buddhist and Christian (Protestant) influences affected Thai educational reforms for girls in primary and secondary education during the early Modernization Period, using a feminist theoretical framework to understand the social, political, economic, and religious impact. Examination of historical documents and empirical data are employed to compare the effect of two religions' values on female education access. The study contributes to the exploration of the historical and contextual discourse of Buddhism and women in Thailand, the history of education for Thai females during the early Modernization Period, and the overview of Protestant missions in the country, particularly their influence in establishing systems of mass education.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPickwick Publications
    Release dateJun 26, 2014
    ISBN9781630873165
    Religious Influences in Thai Female Education (1889-1931)
    Author

    Runchana Pam Suksod-Barger

    R. Pam Suksod-Barger is a guest faculty member in the Intercultural Studies Department at Wheaton College Graduate School. She also currently serves as the English Language Institute program administrator and coordinator of distance education. Her research interests focus on cross-cultural research, internationalization, democratization, technology, social justice, religion, and gender in education.

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      Book preview

      Religious Influences in Thai Female Education (1889-1931) - Runchana Pam Suksod-Barger

      9781625645104.kindle.jpg

      Religious Influences in Thai Female Education (1889–1931)

      Runchana P. Suksod-Barger

      American Society of Missiology Monograph Series vol. 20

      20709.png

      Religious Influences in Thai Female Education (1889–1931)

      American Society of Missiology Monograph Series 20

      Copyright © 2014 Runchana P. Suksod-Barger. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Pickwick Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      isbn 13: 978-1-62564-510-4

      eisbn 13: 978-1-63087-316-5

      Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

      Suksod-Barger, Runchana P.

      Religious influences in Thai female education (

      1889

      -

      1931

      ) / Runchana P. Suksod-Barger.

      American Society of Missiology Monograph Series 20

      xii + 150 pp. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references.

      isbn 13: 978-1-62564-510-4

      1

      .

      Women—

      Education—Thailand.

      2

      . Religious education—Thailand. I. Title. II. Series.

      LA1223 S85 2014

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      Books published in the American Society of Missiology Monograph Series are chosen on the basis of their academic quality as responsible contributions to debate and dialogue about issues in mission studies. The opinions expressed in the books are those of the authors and are not represented to be those of the American Society of Missiology or its members.

      American Society of Missiology Monograph Series

      Series Editor, James R. Krabill

      The ASM Monograph Series provides a forum for publishing quality dissertations and studies in the field of missiology. Collaborating with Pickwick Publications—a division of Wipf and Stock Publishers of Eugene, Oregon—the American Society of Missiology selects high quality dissertations and other monographic studies that offer research materials in mission studies for scholars, mission and church leaders, and the academic community at large. The ASM seeks scholarly work for publication in the Series that throws light on issues confronting Christian world mission in its cultural, social, historical, biblical, and theological dimensions.

      Missiology is an academic field that brings together scholars whose pro-fessional training ranges from doctoral-level preparation in areas such as scripture, history and sociology of religions, anthropology, theology, international relations, interreligious interchange, mission history, inculturation, and church law. The American Society of Missiology, which sponsors this series, is an ecumenical body drawing members from Independent and Ecumenical Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and other traditions. Members of the ASM are united by their commitment to reflect on and do scholarly work relating to both mission history and the present-day mission of the church. The ASM Monograph Series aims to publish works of exceptional merit on specialized topics, with particular attention given to work by younger scholars, the dissemination and publication of which is difficult under the economic pressures of standard publishing models.

      Person seeking information about the ASM or the guidelines for having their dissertations considered for publication in the ASM Monograph Series should consult the Society’s website—www.asmweb.org.

      Members of the ASM Monograph Committee who approved this book are:

      Bonnie Sue Lewis, Associate Professor of Missian and Native American Christianity, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

      James R. Krabill, Adjunct Professor of Missions,

      Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

      Michael A. Rynkiewich, Professor of Anthropology (retired),

      Asbury Theological Seminary

      Previously Published in the ASM Monograph Series

      J. Kevin Livingston, A Missiology of the Road: Early Perspectives in David Bosch’s Theology of Mission and Evangelism

      Jonathan S. Barnes, Power and Partnership: A History of the Protestant Mission Movement

      Gregg A. Okesson, Re-Imaging Modernity: A Contextualized Theological Study of Power and Humanity within Akamba Christianity in Kenya

      vanThanh Nguyen, Peter and Cornelius: A Story of Conversion and Mission

      Jukka A. Kääriäinen, Mission Shaped by Promise: Lutheran Missiology Confronts the Challenge of Religious Pluralism

      Ethan Christofferson, Negotiating Identity: Exploring Tensions between Being Hakka and Being Christian in Northwestern Taiwan

      David P. Leong, Street Signs: Toward a Missional Theology of Urban Cultural Engagement

      Shawn B. Redford, Missiological Hermeneutics: Biblical Interpretation for the Global Church

      For my husband, Jeff, and children, Rachel and Jacob

      Acknowledgments

      There are many people who have graciously helped me through this manuscript process. I would like to especially thank Dr. Erwin H. Epstein, professor emeritus of Cultural and Educational Policy Studies and the founding director of the Center for Comparative Education at Loyola University Chicago, for challenging me to understand comparative education and for his scholarly guidance. I would also like to thank Drs. Kathleen Adams and Robert Roemer, who gave me valuable constructive feedback as my study progressed.

      I also would like to thank my colleagues, Drs. Jamie Alea, Prompilai Buasuwan, Bruce Collet, and Magda Banda, for their input and their assistance in discussing their research projects with me. I would especially like to thank Dr. Katherine Carroll for her constructive editorial responses and invaluable help in my writing process. In addition, I would like to thank my colleagues in the Intercultural Studies Department at Wheaton College Graduate School for their encouragement and support of my academic pursuits.

      I would like to extend additional thanks to the wonderful staffs at the National Library in Bangkok, Thailand, and at the Billy Graham Library in Wheaton, Illinois, for their help in locating Thai historical and statistical educational materials. I have particularly appreciated the kindness of Dr. Robert D. Woodberry of the Center for the Scientific Study of Religion, Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, who helped me to find primary Protestant source materials and allowed me to use a portion of his data to be included in his forthcoming study entitled Project on Religion and Economic Change.

      Finally, I want to thank my family for supporting me throughout these years of research and composition for my study. My parents, Wanchai and Rushanee Suksod, made many sacrifices so I could obtain an education and a love of learning. Most importantly, I am indebted to my amazing and loving husband, Jeff Barger, for always believing in me and continually motivating me in all that I do. His own perseverance and love of learning have been a constant source of strength, and I hope we instill these virtues in our children, in years to come.

      1

      Introduction

      Many social scientists have studied the relationship between education and religion. Education and religion share certain characteristics: both are strong cultural phenomena with authoritative influence over various domains of human activity and both claim to assist people in achieving optimal development.¹ According to comparativist Joseph A. Lauwerys, education and religion both provide the young with understanding of man and world; to develop human action, to reconcile man with his social and natural environment, to prepare young people to discharge effectively their tasks as citizens, [and] to improve material conditions and cultural/spiritual aspirations of people.²

      Nations that desire reform, often after transitioning from the domination of other cultures or regimes, develop education policies that remove or include religion as a vehicle of change. After independence from British colonial rule in 1962, the Trinidadian government implemented educational reforms to remove remaining elements of the colonial past. The government secularized schools run by Christian missionaries, establishing curriculum to develop national and civic unity and supersede earlier denominational values and objectives.³ Similarly, when the National Opposition Union (UNO) took over the Nicaraguan government from the revolutionary Sandinista communist regime in 1990, UNO identified the reassertion of Christian values as one of its central aims. The UNO entrusted Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo and the Council of Bishops with the authority to select the leadership of the Ministry of Education.⁴ In the wake of World War II, Prince Norodom Sihanouk implemented his Buddhist socialism ideology to modernize his country and establish its independence from France.⁵ Sihanouk devoted twenty percent of the national budget building new primary, secondary, and tertiary schools to produce mass education, create national unity for the Cambodian people, and help them earn merit (a key Buddhist concept) by being loyal to the monarchy.⁶ He believed this combination of religion and political ideology would be the instrument to transform his country to an industrialized and technologically advanced nation-state.⁷

      Some nation-states specifically integrate religious ideologies through different levels of education such as examinations, classroom structures, and textbooks. In Taiwan and Japan, for example, the Confucian tenet of allowing all individuals to participate in government by passing fair and open tests was foundational to the current tradition of competitive college entrance examinations.⁸ Keith Sharpe’s analysis of the structure of authority, seating arrangements, and curricula in French primary schools indicated that these elements reflected secularized Catholic values while British primary schools mirrored Protestant characteristics.⁹ Furthermore, Nicaragua’s UNO developed a new subject area for primary schools called Cívica, Moral, y Urbanidad.¹⁰ Textbooks in this new subject area focused heavily on Christian, traditional, and middle-class morals.¹¹

      Some nation-states implement religious education as an instrument of unification and to further social, economic, or political ends. European colonial powers used missionaries to educate indigenous people in Africa, Latin America, and Asia about the Christian religion as a means to gain great control of the people. For example, the Portuguese government established the 1930 Colonial Act to Christianize and educate, nationalize and civilize Africans in Angola and Mozambique.¹² The Roman Catholic Church dominated Cuban educational matters during Spanish rule in the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.¹³ In Indonesia, Dutch colonials lobbied church groups to send missionaries to establish schools when Muslim uprisings threatened colonial rule in Toraja and other highland villages.¹⁴ Interestingly, some transitional nation-states such as India and Haiti continued to incorporate religion into their educational curricula even after achieving independence from Western control, albeit with some alterations. In place of former colonial faiths, these nation-states sought to advance traditional spiritual heritages like Hinduism and Vodou in primary school textbooks and the curricula, thereby rejecting most of the religious tenets that were foundational to former colonial rule.¹⁵

      Furthermore, a number of studies suggest that religion may influence the demand for education.¹⁶ For example, since post-World War II, Latin American Protestants and Christians in the Sub-Sahara and India place more value on educating their children than other religious groups in their economic and social strata.¹⁷ Religion may also influence the provision of education. The Protestant belief that the Bible should be understood in the nations’ indigenous languages helped expand education in many countries in Africa and Asia in the late nineteenth century.¹⁸ Consequently, other religious groups in those countries established their own indigenous schools to preserve the religious identity of their people.¹⁹

      Thus, historically, the relationship between education and religion has often been interdependent. While some social scientists have analyzed aspects of this relationship, there is a lack of research examining the interrelationship between education, religion, and gender. Specifically, existing research has only minimally explored whether the interrelationship between education and religion affects gender inequities present in different societies. What is the role of religion in education for women? Does religion affect access to education particularly for females?

      For women, religion has served as a means to promote education in some cultures. A central belief of the Puritans was that individuals could approach God in prayer and confession only if they could read and understand scripture intelligently. This tenet served to promote public education for women in New England colonies in America during the seventeenth century.²⁰ Similarly, in 1524, Martin Luther appealed to German Christian schools to include girls and women, declaring that women had a particular moral responsibility for shaping a Christian household and that education was a prerequisite for them to properly raise and keep house, children, and servants.²¹ Confucian respect for learning and instruction for all without discrimination contributed to increased female enrollment in schools and expansion of higher education in Taiwan, where the female educational level was among the highest in developing Asian countries in the 1980s.²²

      However, even in recent times religious influences have limited female access to education. Although Confucianism encouraged Taiwanese women to obtain university education without fear of social intolerance, when combined with capitalist development and patriarchy, other Confucian tenets hindered gender equality in education and occupation in countries such as South Korea.²³ As of 1980, 22 percent of males versus 7 percent of females were enrolled in tertiary education in South Korea. By the year 1991, 52 percent of men and 28 percent of women were university students.²⁴ In addition, restricted education for women prevails in some Islamic nation states in the Middle East. According to the United Nations 2002 Arab Human Development Report, two-thirds of the sixty-five million illiterate Arab people are women.²⁵ Lack of educational access for females is due in part to Arab Muslim leaders and clergy members’ opposition of ijtihad, an Islamic concept that includes independent reasoning and critical thinking.²⁶ Policies based on strict interpretation of Islamic law have resulted in reduced educational opportunities for women in some Islamic countries.

      Purpose of the Book

      The purpose of this book is to explore how religion has affected Thai females’ access to education. Since religion can enable or hinder educational access for females, have religious groups in Thailand influenced learning opportunities for girls and women, and to what degree? Further, what prevailing values have promoted educational growth and development for women? This book will analyze the impact of Buddhist and Christian²⁷ ideologies on Thai (formerly known as Siamese) educational reforms, regarding female access to the system during the early Modernization Period (1889–1931).²⁸ Recent Thai governments have assessed this era as significant in the expansion of Thai primary, secondary and higher educational institutions and the Thai king first established official decrees on education modernization, including establishments of the Education Department and other various ministries.²⁹ The advent of Christian social activism, particularly the Protestant missionaries in Thailand in the nineteenth century, inspired King Mongkut (King Rama IV) and his son King Chulalongkorn (King Rama V) to modernize the country while preserving its Thai Buddhist identity.³⁰ By befriending Protestant missionaries, these kings learned English and gained understanding of Western politics, economics and the sciences. They used their newly acquired Western knowledge to internationalize Thailand while keeping the country independent from colonization, especially by France and Britain. When the Protestant missionaries arrived in Thailand in 1828, their ultimate goal was to insure that the Thai people became Christians; they saw education as a critical tool for proselytization and taught both boys and girls the rudiments of reading and writing. The success of early efforts in neighborhood instruction prompted these missionaries to expand schools to include everyone, especially females who were excluded from access to the Buddhist temple education afforded to boys. The Protestant objective of bringing education to all people eventually influenced the Thai government to provide universal public education in the 1920s, near the end of the early Modernization Period.

      Organization of the Book

      This study investigates the impact of religion on access to education afforded to females from 1889 to 1931 in Thailand. Chapter 2 presents the feminist theoretical framework used in this study to explore the impact of social, political, economic, and religious

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