Andrew Wheeler (2016) The Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital in Vietnam

This paper examines the causal effect of parental education on the cognitive and non-cognitive development of children. I find that a parent’s education is a strong determinant of their child’s verbal aptitude, numerical aptitude and educational aspirations. Parents who complete high school rather than just primary school will on average lift their children’s cognitive performance by 24 percentiles in maths, 15 percentiles in vocabulary and 23 percentiles in reading tests. Children of these parents will also aspire to complete two more years of schooling. Somewhat surprisingly, I find that parental education has no impact on children’s self-esteem or self-efficacy. These results are robust to various specifications. I estimate these effects using instrumental variables, taking a change in education policy with differential effects on North Vietnam and South Vietnam as my instrument.

http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/workingpapers/pdfs/csae-wps-2016-22.pdf

Minh T.H. Le, Sara Holton, Huong Thanh Nguyen, Rory Wolfe, Jane Fisher (2015) Prevalence of Poly-Victimisation among Vietnamese High School Students

Although there are more than 30 million children and adolescents in Vietnam, and they account for more than a third of the nation’s population [32], there is limited evidence about poly-victimisation among them. Most previous studies in Vietnam only investigated specific forms of victimisation. The UNICEF Multi Indicator Cluster Survey 3, investigated mothers aged 15–49 years about their care of their under-five year old children and the children's health and development. Conducted in fifty low and middle income countries, it found that Vietnam was among the countries in which corporal punishment and psychological and physical abuse of children were the most prevalent [33]. Nguyen et al [18] investigated 2,581 grade 6–12 students in Vietnam and found that 67% reported at least one form and 6% all four forms of neglect, physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

This is the first study in Vietnam to investigate poly-victimisation among adolescents systematically and comprehensively.

Victimisation was widespread in this sample of high school students with nearly a third having experienced more than ten forms of victimisation.

There were much higher rates of lifetime victimisation among these Vietnamese adolescents than among secondary school students from China [29] and South Africa [31], which are upper-middle income countries. Compared to China—a country which shares many social and cultural similarities with Vietnam, the prevalence was double that reported by Chan [29]. The same conclusion can be made when the results are compared with those reported from high income countries. The prevalence of poly-victimisation in this sample (31%) is much higher than that reported among Australian 23-24-year-old young adults (14%) [3] and triple that reported by Turner et al (10%) among a national sample of American children and adolescents [22, 45]

Exposure to more adverse life events, the presence of a chronic disease or disability, living with a step-parent, perception of family as unhappy, punishment at school and rural residence increased the risk of poly-victimisation when controlling for other variables in this [study's] sample.

Minh T.H. Le, Sara Holton, Huong Thanh Nguyen, Rory Wolfe, Jane Fisher (2015) Poly-Victimisation among Vietnamese High School Students: Prevalence and Demographic Correlates, PLoS ONE 10 (5)

Patrick Sharbaugh (2015) Civic engagement through Internet memes

On the surface it all appears to be just harmless fun and therefore inoffensive to both government officials and, crucially, to other citizens. The medium of the message allows indirect social and political commentary to sneak in disguised as lulz. And it also assures that the content is shared much more widely and viewed much more widely than direct critique would be. In between the two poles of the starry-eyed techno-utopians and the skeptics there are thinkers who’ve suggested that the real potential of online tools for social change in places like Vietnam is not necessarily in coordinating massive street protests and mobilizing activist movements but rather in how they enable citizens to articulate and debate a welter of conflicting ideas throughout society. In other words, social media may matter most not in the streets and the squares but in the myriad spaces of the social commons that Jürgen Habermas called the public sphere. These images and the worldviews behind them are becoming part of the national discourse in Vietnam. And in the process they are quietly, incrementally shifting the zeitgeist.

It’s often said by way of criticism that these images are amateurish and juvenile and short-lived, and that’s true. But they seem to be achieving what all the finger-wagging from the dissident bloggers in Western democracies has not. They’re changing minds. And they’re doing it so precisely because they are juvenile and short-lived and ephemeral and yes, often silly. That’s the whole point.

Patrick Sharbaugh (2015) How meme culture is empowering civic engagement in the socialist republic of Vietnam?

Bill Hayton (2010) Obedient youth

'But regardless of region, for the time being the desires of most urban young people seem to be quite compatible with those of their parents. Parents want their children to be successful, to avoid the privations of their own youth, and their children want the same – the tangible benefits of a rising standard of living. Surveys suggest that the more educated the children, the more concerned they are to obtain a good job. They’re prepared to study hard and work to achieve material success. Their horizons are wide and their hopes are high. In the mainstream of teenage and young adult life there’s very little cynicism or defiance of parental wishes. Traditional values of respect for elders and a sense of community responsibility are still strongly inculcated by parents and schools and the vast majority of children still expect their parents to have a strong influence over how they live their lives.'

Bill Hayton (2010) Vietnam: Rising Dragon Link

Truong Huyen Chi (2009) Child work as voluntary

'Knowing that their parents are working hard for better days for their family, youths take upon themselves an obligation to share the load. The mutual love, moral indebtedness, willingness to share the hardship, and pay back their debt is strongly felt by Dong Vang children and are not simply expressions of filial piety ascribed in a moral model. Rather, these emotions are the moral expectations young people take upon themselves; they have, pace Bourdieu, been internalized and naturalized. Taylor's concept of social imaginary helps explain the tension between the articulation and materialization of the contrasting experiences of Dong Vang children. Their hard work, overwork at times, and feelings towards their parents are consistently cast in overwhelmingly affectionate terms that overshadow any hint of 'abuse' or 'exploitation'.'

Truong Huyen Chi (2009) A home divided: work, body, and emotions in the post-Doi Moi family Link

CECODES, TOWARDS TRANSPARENCY, TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL (2011) Youth's willingness to engage in corruption

'[I]n... getting into a good school/company and going through an interview for a dream job which could be considered as having a greater impact on the future of the respondent, 38% and 33% of youth respectively are willing to engage in corruption... [T]here seems to be no difference in responses between youth who have previously been victims of corruption, compared to those who have not, perhaps illustrating that corruption has become institutionalised. These results are well in line with the flexible attitude that youth display towards integrity and their willingness to relax its definition when there is a financial cost or family loyalty is at stake. It indicates an attitude of broad pragmatism among both youth and adults, which extends well into opportunism and using nepotistic networks.'

CECODES, TOWARDS TRANSPARENCY, TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL (2011) Youth integrity in Vietnam Link