does not have the same kinds of social gradations, and people do not express the social gradations they do have in the same way The third important characteristic of the population, in self definition of its Thainess, is its worldview ncluding its perception of history, of how it came to be as a people and a nation, its ethnic inheritance. The Thai schoolbooks tell and retell the stories of the major kings, and of the events which are considered to be pivotal in the formation of the country. People who are Thai relate themselves to a common perception of history, even if it is not clearly formu lated, and for that matter sometimes not "historical in the academic sense Table 18.1 outlines these components of Thai identity which have been highlighted by official policy. The categories are general, the Thai context they have specific referents. Allegiance is to a spe- cific king, to the Theravada Buddhism as practiced in the area, t the legal-political entity called /mianthay 'the country of the Thai'. The lower triads of characteristics are each amplifications of the last char- acteristic of the preceding triad. So powerful are some of these com- ponents that although a Thai woman with a Ph.D. in linguistics from an American university and teaching at prestigious Chulalongkorn University is in many ways more like her counterpart at the Univer sity of California, Berkeley, than she is like a peasant woman farmer with four years of long-forgotten schooling in northeast Thailand, nevertheless she perceives some kinds of similarities with the Thai peasant woman, and differences from American counterparts, which represent Thai identity. More importantly, she identifies herself with a lineage and history of location which she perceives to be in contrast with those of her American counterparts. Table 18.1. Some components in overtly expressed Thai identity Allegiance to the monarchy Allegiance to the religion Allegiance to the nation Including territory Including government Including people Sharing language Sharing social structures Sharing worldvie Common perception of history Common perception of Common perception of identity similarity/difference