Culture and the Participation of Native in Educational Attainment (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Several researchers such as Ahmed et al., (2011), Majee and Hoyt (2011), Bloom et al., (2011) and Phuong (2007) in their study on the development of Southeast Asia countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam revealed that at the macro level structure, most of the issues like cultural, spiritual, organizational and the world view of the local people have always been neglected. This is because the ideas of development are constructed from scientific knowledge which is generated from the knowledge of the West against the knowledge of the local people themselves (Novel et al., 2011). As a result, the ideal type of social scientists or scientific knowledge is likely to differ from the concepts and meanings used by social actors (Dicks and Pahl, 2011). Culture and tradition are always being parts of an important issue in community development especially among gender (Majee and Hoyt, 2011; Hayrol et al., 2010). This is because culture plays an important role to determine the gender ideologies that define rights and responsibilities and what is appropriate behaviour for women and men. They also influence access to and control over resources and participation in decision-making. These gender ideologies often reinforce male power and the idea of women inferiority (Phuong, 2007; Bloom et al., 2011). Culture is sometimes interpreted narrowly as custom or tradition and assumed to be natural and unchangeable. Despite these assumptions, culture is fluid and enduring. For example the study done by Moktan (2010), Majee and Hoyt (2011) and Rashidpour et al. (2010) pointed out that in the rural areas, women's needs and concern have been neglected and disadvantaged by a combination of their weakened economic positions relative to men.