The Gender Gap in Vietnamese K-12 Informatics: Patterns and Intervention Synthesis

This paper synthesises the literature on gender disparities in K-12 computer-science (CS) participation and reads it against the Vietnamese descriptive baseline to produce a pattern-identification document and an intervention portfolio appropriate for Vietnamese deployment. Three observable patterns are extracted from public data: a near-male-exclusive IOI-delegation pipeline across 1989–2024, a male-skewed HSGQG informatics cohort at the order of four-to-one to six-toone depending on cohort year, and an undocumented universalTin học-scope gender picture under MOET Circular 32/2018 leaving the population-scale tier without a published nationallyaggregated gender breakdown. The intervention literature — Margolis-Fisher, Margolis et al., NCWIT scorecards, AAUW, Dasgupta's stereotype inoculation, Yeager-Dweck growth mindset, ECS evaluations, and UNESCO ASEAN STEM-gender reports — is read against four criteria: replication base, cultural fit to the Vietnamese context, deployment cost, and effect-magnitude evidence. The synthesis recommends a four-element portfolio for Vietnamese deployment: role-model exposure through structured engagement with Vietnamese IOI alumna and female chuyên Tin alumna; identity-affirmation framing in chuyên-feeder THCS recruitment and CLB Olympic Tin onboarding; family-engagement design adjusted for Vietnamese family-decision dynamics; and explicit audit-loop integration of gender-equity criteria into the program's downstream pedagogy outputs. Recommendations are programmatic, not policy-prescriptive.