The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

SOCIAL I'HOCESSES ANIJ SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN C:HONBURI, THAILAND 209
and interviewed these individuals for general information about their
ways of life. We did not try to conduct formal interviews since we felt
that to do this would destroy our easy relationship with them. Furthermore,
the unemployed youth move individually and interprovincially
at frequent intervals. They do not belong or regard themselves as
belonging exclusively to the town of Chonburi.
Young people in jail were interviewed and separated out since
these people were arrested at different places in the province and were
transported to the provincial jail located in the town. They similarly
were not members of the Chonburi Town community although physically
located there.
The relationship between the industrialization and urbanization
processes and social mobility has been analyzed by Lipset and Bendix.
They claim that social mobility is an integral and continuing aspect of
the processes of urbanization and industrialization {Lipset and Bendix,
1959: 280). This study supports their thesis.
Social processes which take place as an outgrowth of industrialization
and which appear to influence the basic pattern of social structure
of rural and urban Thailand are: 1) occupational availability, 2) education,
3) migration, 4) assimilation, 5) social mobility through occupation,
education, migration, and assimilation. These social processes have
influenced the development of social structure of Thailand from a
traditional two-class system* to a multi-class system, by creating the
intervening classes between the lower and the upper classes, and by
allowing increased movement between rural and urban communities,
between the classes, and between ethnic groups.
Social Structure of Thai Society
Early Thai society bas been viewed as a two-class society (Akin,
1969). A society with social classes is divided into hierarchically
* Many Thai specialists prefer to view traditional Thai social structure as a 3 class
system by separating tbe king and the princes and princesses from the nobles. In
this paper I have followed Akin's analysis of the traditional Thai social structure
and view the king, the princes and the princesses (chao) as belonging to the same
clas~ as ~he nobles, i.e. the upper class,