Childhood Education and Cultural Transmission in Rural Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the relationship between the family and early childhood educational institutions in rural Thailand. After observing various religious rituals, these were examined from a viewpoint of how these rituals relate to cultural transmission.
Based on field research, I firstly categorised the ritual types according to actual conditions. Secondly, I examined the family's concern about the ritual practices in early childhood educational institutions and compared value systems transmitted through these rituals in both the family and such institution. The results of this research are as follows:
Rituals in both the family and educational institution appear to have a similar role in the transmission of Thai folk Buddhist beliefs. Children learn cultural behavior patterns through their participation in these rituals as they are performed in both the family and educational institutions.
However, ritual in early childhood educational institutions have an ideological role to transmit the national culture and moral values, different from the role of the family's rituals.The former rituals seem to foster respect for the monarchy and nationally authorized Buddhism in particular. On the other hand, a family's rituals may be concerned with the value of the transmission of traditional folk belief.