A Critical Inquiry into Vietnamese Mainstream Education: Experiences and Voices of Young Ethnic Hmong

• Main Authors: NGUYEN BAO NGOC, 阮葆玉
• Other Authors: WANG, YA-HSUAN
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/qhsxmt

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 教育領導與管理發展國際碩士學位學程 === 106 === Mainstream education provision for ethnic minority students in Vietnam has always been the major focus on the study of development issues domestically and internationally. While most of the studies written in Vietnamese are premised on the neutrality and meritocracy function of mainstream schools, which later adopt the deficit approach and reiterate the urgent need to close the gaps in educational outcomes between the majority Kinh and other minorities groups; a handful of studies written in English elicit a variety of perspectives and dimensions in mainstream education and argue that the dominant dicourse has often been assumed that ethnic minority people are backward, lagged behind, and problematic in awareness and perception, especially the underpresented and isolated Hmong group in Northern Mountains of Vietnam. This study examines such underlying power relations within the mainstream schooling system through insiders’ real experience and their interpretation. Drawing on semi-structured interview and focused-group discussion data of five Hmong young people, who made their way from local schools to higher education institutions in capital city, a deeper look is taken into the ways in which these students interpret their schooling experience and relate it to their ethnicity background. Findings reveal that dominant ideology is strongly expressed in the interactions between teachers and peers from the majority Kinh group and the Hmong students, as well as in the exclusive curriculum and symbolic pedagogy of ethnic diversity. Such hidden curriculum reinforces the lower Hmong minority status compared to the majority and breeds ground for unequal access to educational opportunities, which dissent to the promise of upward social mobility function of mainstream education. Therefore, critical pedagogy and multicultural education are proposed as the transformative approach to address such institutional and structural issue.