<![CDATA[Purpose: This study explores how localized cultural values of collectivism and hierarchy shape students' cognition, emotion, and motivation within schooling environments across the ASEAN region. It specifically addresses the critical gap in understanding how relational self-construals and socio-cultural norms dynamically influence daily academic engagement in non-Western learning contexts. Method: Employing an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) qualitative design, data were collected from 12 purposively sampled secondary and undergraduate students across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Data collection involved two rounds of semi-structured in-depth interviews and participant-authored reflective journals, analyzed via NVivo 14 using line-by-line phenomenological thematic coding. Findings:The findings reveal that academic success is cognitively framed as a relational responsibility to family and community rather than an individual conquest. Affectively, classroom participation is regulated by cultural norms of deference (segan / kreng jai) to preserve social harmony and teacher authority. Motivationally, student persistence is powered by an interdependent self-construal aimed at upholding family honor, validating "relational utility value" as a primary driver of academic effort. Practical implications: Educators and curriculum designers can leverage these findings to implement culturally sustaining pedagogies, such as collaborative problem-solving tasks and anonymous participation channels, ensuring learning environments accommodate relational cognitive styles without compromising student voice. Originality/value: This research provides a novel phenomenological model of interdependent learning dynamics in ASEAN classrooms, challenging Western-centric, individualistic frameworks of autonomous achievement motivation and self-regulated learning]]>
