The teaching of royalist-nationalist civic education and history in Thai schools: Education for the production of ‘docile subjects’

Abstract

As a response to the protracted political conflict that has plagued Thailand for over a decade, Thai royalist-nationalists have stated that the problem of Thai political development derives from a lack of ‘citizenship’ characteristics in Thais. In their view, the best solution is to educate the masses and to cultivate civic education by teaching both it and normative Thai ‘core values’, together with royalist-nationalist history, as subjects to students. As a result, students are destined to become patriotic ‘saviours’. They are expected to be strong citizens who can solve the political development ‘problem’ of democracy under the ‘Democratic Regime of the Government with the King as Head of State’. This article seeks to understand how the two topics of civic education and history have been taught in Thai schools for twelve years, covering both primary and secondary schools. What type of Thai citizen does this curriculum desire to produce? The author rigorously analysed a corpus of civic education and history teaching material, and argues that the contents of these topics are designed to transform students into ‘docile subjects’. They are ideally ‘objects’ that are to be ordered and imposed upon by the state ideology, shaping them into ultra-royalists and ultra-nationalists.