My study focuses on understanding the context for planning a culture-based literacy program that addresses the expressed needs of an ethnolinguistic minority group called the Prai, who live in Northern Thailand. The Prai attend local government schools where they learn to read and write Thai, which is the national language. Prai community members have articulated a desire for their children to succeed academically without sacrificing their own language and cultural identity.
Besides the obvious disadvantage of learning in a second language, the education goals of the Thai community are at odds with Prai cultural values. In fact, local schools present Prai ethnicity, culture, and language as negative characteristics that need to be corrected by the education system. Maintaining Prai culture and language becomes difficult when the community encounters such strong social pressure to become Thai at the expense of being Prai.
Recent changes in Thailand's education policy allow ethnolinguistic minorities to use their languages in the public school classroom. In 1999, minority communities were granted permission to use up to thirty percent of the local public school curriculum for indigenous language and culture study.
However, most Thai teachers neither speak minority languages nor are familiar with minority cultures thereby making it nearly impossible for them to integrate local knowledge into the classroom. The Thai education system, as it stands, fails to engage Prai students. Prai parents and students see education as having little or no direct relevance to their lives.
This study seeks to understand the context for Prai literacy from many perspectives. Prai points of view are at the center, but teachers and other government workers with a vested interest in Prai 'development' were also interviewed. In order for a curriculum that includes Prai language and culture to be successful, it must represent and meet the needs of Prai students without alienating Thai teachers or dismissing national educational goals. Naturally, the difficulty is in finding a middle ground that leads neither to assimilation and a loss of Prai core values nor to complete isolation.
