“Inward” globalization: A look at ethnic education in Vietnam

Globalizing education, while continuously fueling transformative changes to the Vietnamese education system, is predominantly associated with an ‘outward’ expansion toward economically developed nations, instead of an ‘inward’ assessment of educational diversity and equality. How has Vietnam integrated the unique cultural and historical heritages of its 54 ethnic communities into the national educational goals? Across three decades, the established guiding principles, objectives, and solutions increasingly endorsed both national contribution and cultural preservation of ethnic minority students. However, this emerging philosophy tended to be deficit-focused, mainly using ethnic minority groups’ cultural uniqueness to make mainstream teaching materials more appropriate, implicitly assuming that ethnic minority education should be assimilated into the mainstream socio-economic and cultural mode. This paper reimagines these policies’ reflection of the understanding of (il)literacy, ethnicity, solidarity, and identity development in education, which help facilitate intercultural dialogue through and in education, especially with the dearth of research on multiethnic education in Vietnam.