This book analyzes the basic ideas and premises underlying the English textbooks used at the higher secondary school level in Vietnam from the 1980s to the present, from a sociological perspective. The dataset, upon which this book builds, consists of a collection of 18 textbooks, which belong to five sets of locally developed English textbooks for grade 10 to grade 12 students. These series were used in all public schools from the mid-1980s to the present. During this period, schooling expanded rapidly in Vietnam, while English also gained increasing prominence within the school system. This book examines the curricular content of these textbooks and presents a long-term analysis of the 'hidden' curricular content in light of Vietnam's recent history and its government's concerns about national identity.

Autorentext

Thi Duyen Phuong is a lecturer specializing in culture and English at the School of Language and Tourism, Hanoi University of Industry (Vietnam). She has also worked at the secondary school level and holds a Ph.D. degree from Ghent University (Belgium). She has nearly three decades of experience in the field of education and English language teaching and has played an important role in developing and implementing comprehensive curriculum plans for various educational programs. Raf Vanderstraeten is a senior full professor at Ghent University (Belgium). In recent years, he has also been affiliated with the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (Finland), the University of Chicago (USA), and the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK). He serves as an expert for a variety of funding agencies, both inside and outside of Europe, and on the editorial board of several journals, including The American Sociologist and Soziale Systeme. He has published widely on education.