Equity, Opportunity and Education in Postcolonial Southeast Asia

Equity, Opportunity and Education in Postcolonial Southeast Asia addresses the ways in which colonial histories, nationalist impulses and forces of globalization shape equity and access to education in Southeast Asia. Although increasingly identified as a regional grouping (ASEAN), Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines are known for their vastly different state structures, political regimes, political economies and ethnocultural and religious demography.

The expert contributors to this volume investigate educational access and equity for citizens, ethnic and religious minorities, and indigenous people within these countries. The subject of education is framed within the broader national and local challenges of achieving equity and social justice.

This book examines the dimensions of (post)colonialism, nationalism, and globalisation as played out within different international educational contexts. Chapters include:

• Understanding the Cultural Politics of Southeast Asian Education through Postcolonial Theory
• Downplaying Difference: Representations of Diversity in Contemporary Burmese Schools and Educational Equity
• Learner Centered Pedagogy in Post-Conflict Timor-Leste: For the Benefit of the Learner or the Learned
• Technology of Dominance, Technology of Liberation: Education in Colonial and Postcolonial Cambodia
• Change and Continuity in the History of Vietnamese Higher Education
• Colonization by Stealth: The Case of Thailand
• Education Politics in Postcolonial Malaysia: Ethnicity, Difference and Inequalities
• The Singapore Education Journey: From Colonialism to Globalism

Cynthia Joseph is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia.