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2. Lipset, and Bendix, (1959), pp. 216–218, 59Google Scholar and Lipset, S.M., “Social Mobility and Urbanization”, Rural Sociology, XX (1955), 220–228.Google Scholar

3. This study was carried out in 1963 as part of a comparative study of elites in Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia under the auspices of the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute for Sociopolitical Research, Freiburg, Germany, by D. Bernstorff, Z.A. Hanfi, GK. Kindermann and H.D. Evers. In working out this paper I have made excessive use of the field notes and suggestions of my co-workers. The assistance of UNESCO, Paris, and the Volkswagen Foundation, Hannover, is gratefully acknowledged. The research could not have been carried out without the co-operation of the Thai National Commission for Unesco, the Thai Ministry of Education, the Unesco Regional Office in Bangkok and various other institutions in Thailand. I am, however, solely responsible for all statements in this paper.

4. Blanchard, W. et al. , Thailand: its People, Us Society, its Culture, (New Haven: Human Relations Area Files, 1958), pp. 50, 411Google Scholar; Embree, John F., “Thailand — a loosely structured Social System”, American Anthropologist, 52 (1950), 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hamburger, Ludwig, “Fragmentierte Gesellschaft, die Struktur der Thai-Familie”, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 17 (1965), 49–72Google Scholar; Hanks, Lucien M. Jr., “Merit and Power in the Thai Social Order”, American Anthropologist, 64 (1962), 1257Google Scholar; Hanks, Lucien M. Jr. and Hanks, Jane R., “Siamese Thai”Google Scholar, in Lebar, Frank M., Hickey, Gerald C. and Musgrave, John K., Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia, (New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press, 1964), p. 203Google Scholar; Mosel, James N., “Thai Administrative Behavior”, in Siffin, William J., ed., Toward the Comparative Study of Public Administration, (Bloomington: Department of Government, Indiana University, 1957)Google Scholar; Wilson, David A., Politics in Thailand, (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962), pp. 48, 52.Google Scholar

5. Boesch, Ernest E., “Autoritaet und Leistungsverhalten in Thailand”, in Thailand Studien, Vol. XV der Schriften des Instituts far Asienkunde in Hamburg, (Frankfurt a.M. und Berlin: Alfred Metzner Verlag, 1962)Google Scholar; Kingshill, Konrad, Ku Daeng-the Red Tomb, a Village Study in Northern Thailand, (Chiangmai: The Prince Royal's College, and Bangkok: The Siam Society, 1960)Google Scholar; Kaufman, Howard Keva, Bangkuad, a Community Study in Thailand (Locust Valley, N.Y.: J.J. Augustin, 1960)Google Scholar; Skinner, G. William, Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Textor, Robert B., From Peasant to Pedicab Driver, a Social Study of Northeastern Thai Farmers who periodically migrated to Bangkok and became Pedicab Drivers (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1961)Google Scholar; Sharp, Lauriston, Hauck, Hazel M., Janlekha, Kamol, and Textor, Robert B., Siamese Rice Village: a Preliminary Study of Bang Chan 1948–1949 (Bangkok: Cornell Research Center, 1953).Google Scholar

6. Embree, 1960, p. 182.Google Scholar

7. For a description of the sakti na system see Wales, H.G. Quaritch, Ancient Siamese Government and Administration (New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp., 1965), pp. 49–51Google Scholar. Reprint of the 1934 edition).

8. Hanks, 1962, p. 1252.Google Scholar

9. Boesch, 1962, p. 34Google Scholar; Hanks, 1962Google Scholar; Textor, 1961, p. 44Google Scholar. The idea that the social status of a person is connected with religious merit was frequently expressed by Thai civil servants and military leaders during interviews in Bangkok in 1963. See Evers, Hans-Dieter, Higher Civil Servants in Thailand: Social Mobility, Overseas Education, and Attitudes towards Their Own Cultural Tradition (Freiburg i. Br./Germany: Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, 1964) MS.Google Scholar

10. Hanks, 1964, p. 203.Google Scholar

11. The “declining descent rule for rank” of Thai royalty which is sometimes used to exemplify the principles and norms governing mobility is not quite applicable, as it is in fact a system of kinship terminology. Rank or status is determined by bloodrelationship to the King. For a brief discussion of this system and the (quite different) system of conferred ranks see Haas, Mary R., “The Declining Descent Rule for Rank in Thailand: A Correction”, American Anthropologist, 53 (1951), 585–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Bosech, 1962Google Scholar; Phillips, Herbert P., Thai Peasant Personality, the Patterning of Interpersonal Behavior in the Village of Bang Chan (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965)Google Scholar. See also Hanks, L-M. Jr., “Indifference to Modern Education in a Thai Farming Community”, Human Organization, 17 (1958), 9–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Hanks, 1962, p. 1252.Google Scholar

14. Skinner, 1958, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

15. Mosel, 1957.Google Scholar

16. 37.6% in the decade 1919–1929, and 25.0% in the decade 1937–1947. See Wilson, 1962, p. 48Google Scholar and Blanchard, et al. , 1958 p. 50.Google Scholar

17. For the background of the 1932 revolution see Mokarapong, Thawatt, The June Revolution of 1932 in Thailand, a Study in Political Behavior (unpublished Ph.D. thesis; Indiana University, 1962)Google Scholar; Vella, Walter F., The Impact of the West on Government in Thailand (Berkeley: University of California Publications in Political Science Vol. 4, 1955)Google Scholar; and Wilson, 1962, pp. 11–16.Google Scholar

18. Thailand Population Census, 1960, Changuad Series (Bangkok: Central Statistical Office, National Economic Development Board, 1963)Google Scholar. The above estimate is condensed from the re-grouped table 16. It is, however, very doubtful, whether the statistical data in table 16 “Economically Active Population 11 Years of Age and Over, by Work Status, by Occupation, and by Sex” are reliable.

19. Damrong, Prince, “The Introduction of Western Culture in Siam”, Selected Articles from the Siam Society Journal Vol. VII, Bangkok (1959), pp. 1–12.Google Scholar

20. In 1898 a centralized educational system was established. Before that date all basic education took place either in the royal palace in Bangkok or in Buddhist temple schools. In 1921 a primary school law introduced compulsory education, but this law has not been completely enforced up to now.

21. Informants have claimed that before 1932 only about ten students of nonnobility origin have been sent abroad per year by the government.

22. The re-interpretation of Buddhist values was one major subject of the fieldwork in Thailand. Some findings have been reported in Evers, Hans-Dieter, Higher Civil Servants in Thailand: Social Mobility, Overseas Education, and Attitudes Towards Their Own Cultural Tradition (Freiburg: Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, 1964) MS. Chapter IV.Google Scholar

23. Quaritch Wales 1965, p. 35,.Google Scholar

24. Quaritch Wales 1965, p. 74.Google Scholar

25. Wilson, 1962, p. 52.Google Scholar

26. Organizational Directory of the Government of Thailand 1963/2506 (Bangkok: United States Operations Mission, 1963).Google Scholar

27. For full data see Evers 1964, table 10. Only students under the supervision of the Thai Civil Service Commission have been taken into account.

28. Skinner, G. William, Chinese Society in Thailand: an Analytical History (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1957)Google Scholar and Skinner, G. William, Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958).Google Scholar

29. Skinner, 1958, p. 187.Google Scholar

30. Skinner, 1958, p. 305Google Scholar. Similar alliances between the upper classes or elites have been noted for other multi-racial societies, e.g. Ceylon or Mauritius. B. Benedict writes: “Where the political climate permitted there arose a number of parallel economic classes and the vertical barriers between sections tended to diminish notably at the top, though in the positions just below the top competition may be increased.” Benedict, R., “Stratification in Plural Societies”, American Anthropologist 64 (1962), 1233–1246CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the case of Ceylon see Evers, Hans-Dieter. Kulturwandel in Ceylon, eine Untersuchung über die Entstehung einer Industrie-Unternehmerschicht (Cultural Change in Ceylon, a Study on the Emergence of a Group of Industrial Entrepreneurs), Baden-Baden, Germany: Verlag August Lutzeyer, 1964), pp. 71–81, 167.Google Scholar

31. Another aspect of class formation and social mobility, connected with the Chinese in Bangkok, might be of some importance: those Thai, migrating to Bangkok, tend to occupy the lower strata of Bangkok society, while the Chinese or part of them are pushed up into the middle ranges due to their business cash income. It might therefore happen that the two sections of the Thai population namely “workers” and “bureauratic elite” are separated by a strong Chinese middle class. Upward social mobility might then be further complicated for Thais. The 1960 Census data on migration have recently be analysed by E.C. Chapman and A.C.B. Allen, “Internal Migration in Thailand”, paper read at the 38th Congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, Hobart 1965

32. Wilson, 1962, p. 161.Google Scholar

33. Wilson, 1962, p. 164–165.Google Scholar