Tai Groups Of Thailand Profile Of The Existing Groups

In the past 20 years, Christians around the world have launched initiatives to reach Muslims, Communists, Hindus and other major unreached people groups but the Buddhist world has largely been overlooked. Hundreds of millions of Buddhists continue to live and die without any exposure to the Gospel. In Peoples of the Buddhist World, researcher and author Paul Hattaway graphically presents prayer profiles of more than 200 Buddhist people groups around the world, beautifully illustrated with color pictures throughout. In addition, experts have contributed articles on various aspects of Buddhism, helping the reader to learn, pray and work until that day when "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign for ever and ever" (Rev. 11:15).--From publisher's description.

This interdisciplinary book offers a critical analysis of Thai education and its evolution, providing diverse perspectives and theoretical frameworks. In the past five decades Thailand has seen impressive economic success and it is now a middle-income country that provides development assistance to poorer countries. However, educational and social development have lagged considerably behind itsglobally recognized economic success. This comprehensive book covers each level of education, such as higher and vocational/technical education, and such topics as internationalization, inequalities and disparities, alternative education, non-formal and informal education, multilingual education, educational policy and planning, and educational assessment. The 25 Thai and 8 international contributors to the volume include well-known academics and practitioners. Thai education involves numerous paradoxes, which are identified and explained. While Thailand has impressively expanded its educational system quantitatively with much massification, quality problems persist at all levels. As such, the final policy-oriented summary chapter suggests strategies to enable Thailand to escape “the middle income trap” and enhance the quality of its education to ensure its long-term developmental success.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: 1, University of Vienna (Calpoly Thai Study Program 2004), language: English, abstract: I am writing this paper on the Thai nation state and its minorities as a student of political sciences as well as social and cultural anthropology, educated at the University of Vienna. Through a short period I had the chance to study Thai culture in the country itself but this is not given me enough proficiency to judge the same. On my research I rely on scholars which have had wide range of vast experiences with the country, nevertheless I try to implement my own experiences in a, as far as it is possible, objective way. Since 1939 Thailand exists, but only the name itself appeared then as Siam, its former name was known already hundreds of year, back to its traditional founding date in 1238 (CIA Factbook, Winichakul 1994:150). The difference between Siam and Thailand is the form of its organization, as Siam was always a monarchy ruled by an absolute monarch. Only 1932 this absolute monarchy became history and a new form of state was born. From there on we speak of Thailand – a modern nation state (McCargo 2000). As Thongchai Winichakul writes was this change a political act of a chauvinist regime to promote the domination of the ethnic Thai and their culture over others. The Thai government under Phibun (1939-1944) had adopted to fascism, which was a global current during this time, they promoted the notion of the great Thai race and their territory (Winichakul 1994:18,150). The following paper is going to deal with this concept of the Thai state during the major part of the last century, describing the challenges the western concept brought with it, especially in terms of ethnicity. Thailand was formed with nationalistic ideas, in a territorial as well as an ethnic way, whereas the latter was natural due to the fact that, as nowadays, 95% of the Thai citizens define themselves as ethnic Thai’s – including Isarn and Lanna (see 2.3). At the beginning of the nation this did not look as clear as it seams. As a part of the heterogeneous South East Asia also the territory of Thailand is inhabited by a wide ethnic divergence. Thailand itself brought many Chinese immigrants into the country, as workers adding to their economic boom. Where are they now? And much more interesting what are they now?