Schooling and National Integration: the case of interwar Vietnam

Abstract

The existence of a colonial school system transcending regional boundaries may not, in and of itself, mean that schools promote national integration. Rather, as some scholars have pointed out, the development of a national school system may serve to exacerbate or create regional, ethnic, and class tensions [2]. Evidence supporting either assertion of the role of the schools has tended to be unidimensional, attending solely to either horizontal integration (across regions) or to vertical integration (among social strata). Often, the assumption is made that if schools minimalise regional tensions, they have a similar effect on class tensions, and vice versa. In addition, research has implied that the integrative, or disintegrative (whichever the case may be) effect of colonial schools, holds in every society which has been dominated by a foreign power. Such conclusions may be unwarranted, for they overlook the difference in the societal context of the schools, which vary considerably. This variance is not only due to differences among European colonial powers, but among societies which were colonised. This article is a case-study of the impact of colonial schools on national integration in interwar Vietnam. It will consider the school's relation to both horizontal and vertical dimensions of national unity. It will seek to explain the school's role in terms of the distribution of education by social strata and region, the type of education offered, and the political and social context of interwar Vietnam. I will show that education's relation to national unity depends on the school system itself and conflicts within the society. The case-study presented here has relevance to examining the school's role in national integration in all societies, regardless of whether they are colonised. While in Vietnam the data which follow indicate the schools played a divisive role, on both horizontal and vertical dimensions of national integration, this effect was not due solely to foreign domination, the peculiar characteristics of individual colonial powers, or to specific educational policy intent. Rather, it resulted from the complex interaction between French and Vietnamese. Its roots lay also in pre-colonial Vietnamese society and tensions which lacked total resolution before the advent of French rule. The Vietnamese case is instructive not because it will allow us to generalise findings, but because it indicates the necessity of analysing the horizontal and vertical impact of education on national integration independently of one another and to