Exploring the History of Women's Education and Activism in Thailand

While the history of education1 in Thailand has been a productive area of research for numerous authors, particularly in its relationship to nationalism and modernization, it remains only a partial history. For this history has primarily documented the evolution and "progress" of Thai men's education as if it could represent the experiences of Thai women as well. This is indeed not the case. In an exploratory examination of the mainstream historical literature, I found that emphasis was typically placed on the education of royal and elite men, especially in connection with the rise of the Thai bureaucracy and state centralization under the reign of King Chulalongkorn.2 Thus, in many instances, women remain an undeniable absence in Thai history.3 In order to outline a tentative history of women's education to complement that of men, it was necessary to rely on sources from a number of disciplines, including education, history, anthropology, political science, economics, and population studies. A book entitled A History of Thai Education, published by the Thai Ministry of Education, proved to be the most sensitive to issues of gender in Thailand's educational history.4 That may be a result of the fact