Abstract
This chapter describes the transformation of student aspirations in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. It argues that modern secular education, barely six decades old in Bhutan, is effectively producing and reproducing a new hierarchy of aspirations, placing certain professions such as doctor, engineer, and government servant at the top of the hierarchy and the teaching profession toward the bottom. However, this chapter also argues that, contra the Prime Minister Thinley the excerpt above, these new aspirations do not signal a break with family ties. Rather families often help to reinforce this hierarchy of aspirations.
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Roder, D. (2017). “Too Good to Teach”: Bhutanese Students and a Hierarchy of Aspirations. In: Stambach, A., Hall, K. (eds) Anthropological Perspectives on Student Futures. Anthropological Studies of Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54786-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54786-6_3
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