Minority Status and Schooling of the Hmong in Vietnam

AbstractThis study examines the disproportionately poor academic performance of the Hmong among the minorities in Vietnam by using Ogbu's cultural ecological theory (Ogbu, 2003). Societal and school factors have been assumed by many policy makers and scholars to affect minorities' equally, but the paper argues that may not be the case when minority status is taken into account. "Community forces" are pointed to as the putative cause of the Hmong's differential academic performance. "Community forces" of each ethnic group are related to their status as a minority group, which orients their interpretations and responses to schooling. In this paper, the minority status of the Hmong is explained through their group development history, settlement patterns, livelihoods and economic adaptive strategies and political participation through a review of the scholarly literature on the Hmong. Additionally, field research was conducted in Vietnam using a grounded theory approach to ethnography to understand how minority status influences community forces, and in turn, how these community forces affect the schooling of Hmong students.Keywords: minority status, Hmong, schooling, culture, VietnamINTRODUCTIONThe Hmong are a relatively large ethnic group with an estimated population of around 12 million throughout the world, of which the majority are living in China and the remaining residing in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, France, the United States, Canada, Australia, French Guiana, Argentina, New Zealand, and Germany (Cha, 2010). In Vietnam, out of 54 ethnic groups, the Kinh is the largest group with almost 86% of the country's population. Among 53 minority groups, the Hmong rank as the fifth largest group with 1.068. 189 people, equivalent to 1.24% of Vietnam's population (Census, 2009). There are more than 40 clans of Hmong who are divided into 6 groups including: Hmong Der (white Hmong), Hmong Du (black Hmong), Hmong Si (Red Hmong); Hmong Dua (Green Hmong); Hmong Lenh (flowery Hmong) and Hmong Xua (Crossbred Hmong). These groups are distinguished by differences in language, dress and custom (Institute of Anthropology, 2005). The Hmong people mainly reside in 20 provinces but the majority (over 91%) are settled in the northern mountainous regions of Vietnam including: Ha Giang (nearly 22%), Dien Bien, Son La, and Lao Cai (14-16%), Lai Chau, Yen Bai, Cao Bang (5-10%) and Bac Kan, Tuyen Quang (1-5%) where the living conditions are extremely harsh and poor. The remaining primarily live in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An provinces in the central region and Dak Lak, Dak Nong provinces in the central highlands (UNFA, 2011) (Figure 1). In comparison with other minority groups in Vietnam, the Hmong have been assessed to be the most economically vulnerable with the highest poverty rate, and the lowest educational achievements. In the extremely socioeconomically impoverished communes, the Hmong have the highest proportion of family income below the new 2011 poverty line (around US$19 per person per month) (82.6%) compared to the Vietnam population (53%) and the other minority groups (below 70%) (Pham et al., 2011). Likewise, it is also recognized that the Hmong have the poorest academic performance among ethnic groups in Vietnam. Figure 2 shows a wide gap in the proportions of literacy and nonschool attendance between the Hmong and the other ethnic groups. The level of nonschool attendance among the Hmong (48%) is approximately 16 times higher than that enumerated among the Kinh (around 3%). As a consequence, data from 2009 show that the literacy rate among the Hmong is quite low (nearly 38%) while it is very high (enumerated at 94%) among larger ethnic groups such as the Kinh, Tay and Muong.Similarly, sizable differences in net enrollment rates exist among ethnic groups in Vietnam. Apart from the dominant group (Kinh), the Tay and the Muong possess the highest rates among the minority groups. In contrast, the Hmong and the Khmer suffer from the lowest net enrollment rates at different educational levels. …