Vietnamese Language, Education and Change In and Outside Vietnam

This open access edited book attempts to break new ground in investigating multiple facets of Vietnamese language, education and change in global contexts, engaging with global Vietnam through complex lenses of language and education. Issues of language, globalization, and global identities have often been framed through the lens of hierarchical/binary power relations, and/or through a dichotomy between hyper-central languages, such as English, and revisualized or marginalized local language and cultures. In this book, this dichotomy is turned on its head by considering how Vietnam and Vietnamese are constructed in and outside Vietnam and enacted in global spaces of classrooms, textbooks, student mobility, community engagement, curriculum, and intercultural contacts. Vietnamese is among the world’s most spoken languages and is ranked in the top 20th in terms the number of speakers. Yet, at the same time, as a ‘peripheral’ or ‘southern’ global language as often seen in the Global North-Global South spectrum, the dynamics of multilingual and multicultural encounters involving Vietnamese generate distinctive dilemmas and tensions, as well as pointing to alternative ways of thinking about global phenomena from a fresh angle. Rather than being outside of the global, Vietnamese - like many other ‘non-central’ global languages - is present in diasporas, commercial, and transnational structures of higher education, schooling, and in the more conventional settings of primary and secondary school, in which visions of culture and language also evoke notions of heritage and tradition as well as bring to the fore deep seated ideological conflicts across time, space, communities, and generations. Relevant to students and scholars researching language, education, identity, multiculturalism, and their intersections, particularly related to Vietnam, but also in Southeast Asia and beyond, this volume is a pioneering investigation into overlooked contexts and languages from a global, southern-oriented perspective.

"This book presents an eclectic collection of 15 chapters unified by an interest in developing and teaching the Vietnamese language. To my knowledge, there has been no previous attempt to make the national language of Vietnam a focus for as many perspectives as are documented in the book. In this regard, the book makes an original and intriguing contribution to the literature on Vietnamese culture, including the culture of Vietnam’s expanding diaspora. The book is pioneering in the extent to which it draws attention to the many roles played by a national language in a nation’s political, social and cultural development. It also documents the challenges of preserving a national language in settings where it is at risk of being marginalized. It is pleasing that so many of the contributing authors are young Vietnamese scholars who can provide a distinctly Vietnamese perspective on concepts and practices of global significance."
- Dr. MartinHayden, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, Southern Cross University, Australia

"Vietnamese Language, Education and Change In and Outside Vietnam brings together an excellent collection of chapters that highlight the diverse and important but under-explored roles Vietnamese language plays in different settings within and outside Vietnam. The fifteen chapters of this much needed book provide unique insights into various aspects and meanings of Vietnamese language. Collectively, the volume contributes to broadening our view about the evolution and transformation of Vietnamese language under the impacts of local, national, regional and global forces. The book invites readers to engage in a reflective and intersectional approach to rethinking and re-examining our understandings of the changes and developments of Vietnamese language over the history of the country."
- Dr Ly Tran, Professor, Centre for Research for Educational Impact (REDI), Deakin University, Australia, and Founder: Australia-Vietnam International Education Centre

Phan Le Ha, Founder of Engaging With Vietnam, and the Global Vietnam book series with Springer as well as the Global Vietnam journal with Amsterdam University Press, is Senior Professor at Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. She also holds Honorary Professorship in the IOE―Culture, Communication & Media, University College London, UK. She has taught and published on language, education and identity, global/international/transnational higher education, international and development education, academic mobilities, and sociology of knowledge. Her research work has covered many contexts in Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Asia-Pacific, and the Gulf regions. 

Dat Bao is Senior Lecturer at Monash University (Australia) and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal for Silence Studies in Education (JSSE). He has previously worked with Leeds Beckett University in the UK, Cornell University in the US, the National University of Singapore, and the Assumption University of Thailand. His research interests include silence studies, creative thinking, curriculum development, intercultural education, and creative pedagogy in language education. In 2018, he received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching at Monash University. 

Joel Windle's research and teaching focuses on cultural and linguistic diversity, and in particular how community-based literacies can make curricula more inclusive. He is currently leading an international study on innovative teaching practices involving partners from Brazilian and North American Universities, as well as community-based organizations and school educational authorities. His research has received support from the Australian Research Council, Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, and the State Research Foundation of Rio de Janeiro. Publications include Making Sense of School Choice (awarded the Raewyn Connell Prize for Best First Book in Australian Sociology and the Stephen Crook Prize for Best Book in Australian Sociology) and The Dynamics of Language and Inequality in Education. He is a qualified secondary teacher of English as a Second Language and French, having taught in Australian and French schools before working in higher education.