Reading the Word and the World: A Critical Literary and Autoethnographic Analysis of Educational Renovation in Vietnam

Abstract

This study, informed by critical pedagogy literacy, inquires into the accomplishments of the policy of Doi moi Giao duc, or Educational Renovation, in Vietnam. The study, which occurred over two years, uses critical literary analysis and autoethnography as primary methodologies; it focuses is on the author's personal experience and the analysis of literature and public documents to inquire into educational polices and practices. How the key tenets of Renovation - democratization and modernization, socialization and equalization - have been translated into practice was the center of the investigation. This study indicates that there has been a wide difference between the Renovation manifesto and its practice. This in turn has been the genesis of a critical literacy or resistance against that disparity by many teachers and learners. The study also suggests that schools are not only sites of dominion but also of contestation and that the oppressed have the ability to be self-conscientized. The study sought to understand the inconsistency and the ambiguous attitude about a Freirean praxis, and interpret this as an inescapable product of cultural and political circumstances. In this way, the study emphasizes the power of Paulo Freire's theory of critical education and at the same time suggests the possibility of its being reinvented in this sociopolitical context.