Understanding Multicultural Education and Social Work Practice, & the Tao Complexity Tool Model in Relation to the Vietnamese Students' Social and Academic Success in Public School in the United states

Abstract

Historically the United States has been a country open and very welcoming to immigrants from all over the world. Specifically, Vietnamese refugees were a significant population that entered the US after the fall of Saigon in 1975 during the Vietnam War. According to Zhou and Bankston (n. d.), in the early 1970s there were fewer than 15,000 Vietnamese in the US; by 1990, the group increased over 615,000, a 40-fold increase in just 15 years. Zhou and Bankston (n. d.) added that the sudden arrival of this new and sizeable population of Vietnamese refugees poses challenges to those who work with the American youth. The Vietnamese culture is vastly different from most long-lasting American cultures wherein Vietnamese parents hold a set of a cultural vales, norms, beliefs, behavioral standards, and expectations entirely seems at odds with those of the United States (p. 2). In this light, this reflection seeks (1) to highlight the positive effects of Multicultural Education theory (MET) and Multicultural Social Work Practice (MSWP) as pedagogical and sociological methodologies in coordination with the Tao Complexity Tool Model (TCTM) on the Vietnamese students' academic and social success; and (2) to highlight the effects of TCTM as an open system in inducing paradigm shift in policy-making in complementarity to systems thinking in addressing and resolving global issues, and explain global systems as open systems in the postmodern world as multicultural communities of practice. In doing so, (1) I define and explain TCTM as an open system and explain its utilization in inducing paradigm shift in policy-making, (2) clarify the interconnectedness and complementarity of TCTM to systems thinking and addressing issues, (3) explain thinking in open systems based on Fu and Kirk's (1999) perspective on open system in conjunction with Senge's (2006) work on systems thinking, (4) clarify the importance of helping the immigrant Vietnamese students attain success in American education system and the stabilization of their families' living conditions in the United States, (5) define and explain MET and MSWP as intervention tools in resolving the crucial issues shaping the learning process of the Vietnamese students through effective multicultural educational and social work practices, (6) review pertinent literature on the topic, and finally, draw my conclusion in this writing.