Schools and politics in South and North Viet Nam: A comparative study of state apparatus, state policy, and state power (1945-1965). (Volumes I and II)

This dissertation studies the South and North Vietnamese primary and secondary school apparatuses as they developed between 1945 and 1965 from the perspective of state formation and the reach of state power. It focuses on how state-based, class-based, and nation-based factors interacted to shape the organizational structure and content of the school apparatuses and the extent to which the schools effected and/or maintained economic and ideological practices.;It argues that in both Viet Nams, state-based elements became the dominant elements which shaped school apparatuses. Two aspects of statism were the organizational structure of the school apparatus and the political/ethical content of study programs. Both Ministries of Education advocated a bureaucratic form of school organization, uniformity of study programs and examinations, and centralization of teacher training and textbook-writing. Attempts to create alternative school structures which were less centralized and more localized met with limited success. In the area of political and ethical content, in both Viet Nams, nation-based and class-based elements were selected to conform with or support state-based elements and were retained only so long as they did not contradict them.;The persistence of state-based elements in the two Viet Nams' school systems can be attributed to several inter-state factors. The two Viet Nams need to establish themselves in the international system and their need to compete for political hegemony at home necessitated the building of a bureaucratically organized and centralized school system based on uniformity. This ideological state apparatus transmitted state-sanctioned political/ethical knowledge which helped the central authority to curb or neutralize regionalism and localism. As a result, despite ideological differences, the two Viet Nams' school systems were similar in that they both served to consolidate state power in the name of nationhood and class interest, while neither served to alter the forces of production which would have strengthened the economy.