Leadership in marginalized context: a case study of higher education institutions in Northeastern of Thailand

Abstract

Many communities experience marginalization, with particular focus on rural communities. Today, various communities continue to be marginalized from society due to the development of practices, policies, and programs that "m[ e ]et the needs of white people and not the needs of the marginalized groups themselves" (Yee, 2005). Some universities in the Northeast of Thailand are deprived, if not excluded, from services, policies, and programs to the detriment of the institutions and the higher educational system in general. With the marginalization, higher education institutions in the provinces often fail to respond to the increasing demand for internationalization and fall short in meeting the global standards for higher education. Through the analysis of data gathered from in-depth interviews, observations, focus-group discussions, and documentary, this paper investigated the six universities in the Northeast of Thailand.