British Journal of Sociology of Education

ISSN: 0142-5692 (Print) 1465-3346 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbse20

Profit and prejudice: a critique of private English

language education in Vietnam

Dominic Hewson

To cite this article: Dominic Hewson (2017): Profit and prejudice: a critique of private
English language education in Vietnam, British Journal of Sociology of Education, DOI:
10.1080/01425692.2017.1417114

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2017.1417114

Published online: 22 Dec 2017.

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 British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2017.1417114

Profit and prejudice: a critique of private English language

education in Vietnam
Dominic Hewson
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
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ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

It is 30  years since Vietnam implemented the ‘Doi Moi’ economic Received 30 November 2016
reforms. The subsequent influx of capital was accompanied by Accepted 12 December 2017
a general infiltration of foreign influences, arguably none more KEYWORDS
important than the English language. This article focuses on an Bourdieu; English language;
area where market and language converge: the private English Neoliberalism; Vietnam
as a second language industry. Drawing upon the ideas of Pierre
Bourdieu, the article utilises the experiences of teachers to examine
industry practices, with particular emphasis on the consequences of
education commodification. The article locates its findings within the
wider contexts of Vietnamese education, economy and the global
propagation of the English language and market ideals. These findings
depict a profit-driven industry where the customer always being right
is not always right for the customer.

1. Introduction
It is three decades since the Vietnamese Communist Party launched the ‘Doi Moi’ reforms
that opened the country to foreign investment and influence. Roughly translating as ‘ren-
ovation’, sometimes referred to as ‘open door’, Doi Moi saw Vietnam abandon its centrally
planned economy, initially permitting and soon encouraging private enterprise. Since 1990
economic growth has averaged 5.5% a year, per-capita income has risen from approximately
$100 to $2100 and extreme poverty has dropped from 50% to 3% as Vietnam has become
one of the world’s fastest growing economies (World Bank 2016). Reform opened Vietnam to
more than just financial investment: foreign ideas and culture flooded into a country isolated
since the Soviet Union’s demise. One of the most important developments has been the rapid
proliferation of the English language. Facilitating and flourishing alongside market liberali-
sation, English has become the global language of integration and modernisation, playing a
key role in building alliances and attracting investment (Huong and Hiep 2010, 50; Nguyen
2012, 261–262). One area in which English and market liberalisation have converged and
prospered is that of education. Following the abandonment of pure socialist universalism,
Vietnam restructured its education system, commodifying and exposing aspects to market
forces. These changes have been implemented during a period where demand for English

CONTACT  Dominic Hewson  dominic.hewson@tdt.edu.vn

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 2   D. HEWSON

as a second language (ESL) instruction has boomed and private companies have played a
key role in satisfying it.
This article takes the education delivered by these companies as its subject matter. The
article employs primary and secondary data, along with the ideas of French sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu, to identify and analyse four problematic aspects of ESL education relating to its
commodification. The article locates this analysis amid wider contexts of the Vietnamese
economy, the Vietnamese education system and the increasing and interrelated global prop-
agation of market ideals and the English language.

2.  Economy and education

Although Doi Moi opened Vietnam to market forces, it did not transform the country into
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a free market society. Vietnam operates a ‘socialist-orientated market economy’, with the
Communist Government retaining much control over that economy and society in general.
This has led to some dubbing Vietnam a ‘Market-Leninist’ society, referring to an acquies-
cence to market forces, alongside retention of authoritarian, centralised governance (London
2011). This hybrid system has developed during a period where free market ideals have
become dominant globally. Embodied in the ideology of neoliberalism, these ideals promote
free markets, free trade and private property, inspiring reformation of various institutions,
private and public, accordingly. Education has not been immune, ‘restructuring’ has exposed
schools, teachers and students to market forces as services are increasingly commodified
(Levidow 2002, 12). Advocates claim that such forces imbue education with accountability,
autonomy and flexibility (Molnar and Garcia 2007, 18), critics argue that they have ren-
dered education a consumable product: erroneously reconceptualising the student–teacher
relationship as supplier–customer and excluding those unable to pay (Holborow 2007, 61).
In recent decades Vietnam has come under pressure to restructure its education system
along neoliberal lines. Grants offered by the World Bank have come with ties promoting
cost-efficiency and market forces (London 2011, 25). For the most part, the government
appears amenable to such restructuring: permitting public schools to charge fees, encourag-
ing them to engage in ‘revenue enhancing activities’ and pressuring local authorities to adopt
‘business model’ strategies (2011, 22 and 26). However, as with economic reform, the gov-
ernment has permitted the introduction of market forces while retaining its ‘dominant lead-
ership role’ (2011, 17). The state remains the primary provider of education through public
schools which enjoy considerable investment: by 2010 education accounted for nearly 21% of
total government expenditure, a larger proportion than any OECD nation (Schleicher 2015).
Acting through the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), the state exercises tight
control over curriculums, textbooks and instruction methods. Drawing upon the traditional
‘Confucian model’ still influential throughout Asia, the MOET emphasises hierarchical
student–teacher relationships, rote learning, intensive examination preparation and ‘unques-
tioning obedience’ (Nguyen 2012). Much like its hybrid economy, Vietnam’s educational
restructuring appears to be yielding results. Vietnam consistently and comprehensively
outperforms other developing countries in standardised international testing (Pfeiffer 2016).
In the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment tests, Vietnamese
students outperformed many developed countries, including the United Kingdom and the
USA, in all fields (Schleicher 2015). Dubbed the ‘Vietnam effect’, these exceptional perfor-
mances have been attributed to heavy financial investment, committed leadership, focused
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION   3

curriculums and cultural emphasis on education (Pfeiffer 2016; Schleicher 2015). However,
critics of restructuring have claimed that statistics hide a harsh reality for less privileged
Vietnamese. Bourdieu asserts that neoliberal restructuring destroys ‘collective structures’
that guarantee minimum levels of security and provision (Holborow 2007, 58–59). This is
evident in Vietnam where collectivist institutions, responsible for genuinely free education,
were abandoned during reform (London 2011, 22 and 33). The introduction of unofficial
fees and contributions for primary schools mean that education is now free in name only.
While 95.5% of Vietnamese children enrol in primary school, only 88.2% complete (Hoang
2013). Polarisation escalates at secondary level where public schools are permitted to charge
official fees which act as a ‘sorting mechanism’ that filters out the underprivileged (London
2011, 37). It should be taken into account that non-attending children do not participate in
the aforementioned standardised tests in which Vietnam performs so well.
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3.  Vietnam and the English language

Because of its role as the language of commerce, English has become intimately connected
with the global spread of neoliberal ideals (Holborow 2007; Piller and Cho 2013). Within
the education system, market forces endorse English as a ‘natural and neutral medium’ and
a pathway to a good career, social success and even marriage (Piller and Cho 2013, 24 and
39). Although the proliferation of English in Vietnam is a recent trend, language as a means
to advance status and prospects is not a new phenomenon in a country where languages
have long been sources of capital. In the past, Chinese and French occupiers employed
compliant functionaries and clerical workers fluent in their own languages to maintain
their ‘ruling machine’. French in particular was ‘a tool’ through which a Vietnamese person
could learn to speak, think and live ‘the French way’ (Nguyen 2012, 260). In 1954 the French
were defeated and the country divided, precipitating the Vietnam War. As each region allied
with a superpower, English became the leading foreign language in the US-backed South,
while the North’s alliance with the Soviet Union saw Russian prosper. Following northern
victory and reunification, Russian became the ‘privileged foreign language’ while English,
tainted by association with the USA, declined (2012, 261). The stigma was not permanent;
as Doi Moi took effect in the 1990s, English was rehabilitated as a valuable tool of integration
and growth. Today the government officially recognises English as advantageous ‘to the
Vietnamese people, serving the cause of industrialisation and modernisation’ (Government
Decision 1400 2008).
In recent decades, both the government and citizens have invested heavily in ESL edu-
cation. In 1994 all state officials were instructed to learn a foreign language and classes
were provided by the state. Public schools increased emphasis on bilingualism and English
in particular: by 1995, 73% of high school students were studying the language (Nguyen
2012, 261). In 2002 the MOET introduced a new curriculum making English compulsory
for secondary school students and elective at primary level. Today all third-level students
are required to study a foreign language and 94% choose English (Van Van 2011, 12). An
ambitious MOET initiative dubbed ‘Project 2020’ has allocated approximately $5 billion
towards ensuring all students leaving school that year will be able to use English in daily
communication. The initiative is predicated on every student receiving four weekly lessons
from teachers possessing a minimum B2 grade from the Common European Framework
of Reference for Languages (Parks 2011). Steps have also been taken to follow other Asian
 4   D. HEWSON

countries’ attempts to move away from the Confucian model’s focus on memorisation and
accuracy and towards ‘communicative competence’ (Shin 2007, 77; Van Van 2011, 16).
However, in spite of heavy investment, the Vietnamese government has been unable
to satisfy escalating public demand. The paucity of ESL education between the end of the
Vietnam War and Doi Moi engendered a dearth of capable teachers. This shortfall caused
one leading former ESL development manager to describe Project 2020 as ‘completely
unachievable’ (Parks 2011). Such warnings seem prescient: in 2013 the MOET required
Vietnamese teachers test their language capabilities and fewer than 7% passed (Tuoi Tre
2013). This shortage meant that as the 2015/16 school year began, many students were not
receiving the mandated level of English instruction: the MOET’s own statistics revealed
that over 711,000 children were not receiving any tuition (Vietnam Breaking News 2016).
Furthermore, where teachers are available, many are underqualified, under pressure and
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prone to returning to traditional rote learning strategies to get students through examina-
tions (Van Van 2011, 16).
Faced with demand beyond capacity, the Communist Government has turned to the
private sector. Operating as businesses and regulated by little more than market forces,
English centres and international schools have flourished (Van Van 2011, 15). These facili-
ties offer highly competitive salaries to attract foreign ‘native speakers’: in a country where
the average monthly salary is approximately $200, teachers can earn over $2000. Many
ESL companies do not receive subsidies and evade controls that the government exercises
over general education. Periodic attempts have been made to impose minimum standards,
including mandated student–teacher ratios, classroom sizes and proficiency levels. However,
regulation has proven problematic and directives are not always adhered to (ICEF Monitor
2012). In spite of diverse standards and ‘unreasonably high’ costs, business is booming and
‘enrolment is always full’ (Nguyen 2012, 263).

4.  Bourdieu and capital

The initial premise of this research was a practical, rather than theoretical, analysis of private
ESL education in Vietnam. However, while examining the data it became apparent that
the ideas of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu were highly relevant to emerging themes,
particularly his ideas concerning linguistic and cultural capital. Bourdieu first developed
the concept of cultural capital in order to outline how children from upper-class families
possessed hidden advantages when it came to educational and thus economic and social
achievement (Mills 2008, 79). He argued that the ‘scholastic yield’ derived from education
depended on more than financial and temporal investments, it was also influenced by
cultural knowledges transferred through the family (Bourdieu 1986, 83). While previous
analyses of class privilege focused on advantages derived from economic capital, Bourdieu
identified a series of ‘subtle modalities’ relating to linguistic competencies, manners, atti-
tudes and ways of thinking that confer the ‘propensity and resources to play the educational
game effectively’ (Reay 2004, 74 and 84). These cultural interests and affects are typically
inherited: passed down by ‘bourgeois families’ ‘to their offspring as if [they] were an heir-
loom’, imbuing them with lifelong competencies and privileges (Bourdieu 1984, 66).
The acquisition of cultural capital typically takes place within the home, during ‘the ear-
liest days of life’ (Bourdieu 1984, 66). However, recent research identifies other locations
where cultural capital is acquired and traded. Bridget Byrne’s (2009) analysis of class privilege
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION   5

in the United Kingdom documents how education is not just aided by cultural capital, but
has become one of the main areas in which it is transmitted. Similar research conducted by
Dianne Reay (2004) explores the ways in which various forms of capital can be deployed
and exchanged within academic settings (Reay et al. 2001, 2007). Reay’s (2004, 83–84) work
draws upon Bourdieu’s assertion that ‘educational strategies’ are often influenced by, and
formulated according to, the balance of capitals available to actors and their families. Thus,
while cultural capital typically assists and exists in conjunction with economic capital, some
groups possessing an abundance of one form may draw upon their surplus capital to exchange
for and acquire another. For example, children from middle-class refugee families rich in
cultural capital but lacking economic capital may draw upon their entitlement, confidence
and home support in converting cultural assets into academic and economic success (Reay 
et al. 2001, 871; Reay 2004, 82–84). Or, as this research reveals, families recently inducted into
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the Vietnamese middle classes may draw upon their newfound economic capital to purchase
the cultural capital they are lacking.
Bourdieu’s ideas are employed throughout this article to analyse the manner in and
degree to which commodification of ESL education facilitates capital exchange and impacts
education quality. In doing so, the article explores the ways in which certain types of cap-
ital have become intimately associated with western linguistics, culture and whiteness. In
a globalised world, issues of race are ‘enmeshed’ with those of culture and privilege (Reay
2001, 870); however, Bourdieu’s framework is often criticised for failing to account for
these intimacies (Byrne 2009, 432–433). While this article draws upon Bourdieu’s ideas,
it is hoped the article can also expand upon them by addressing the role played by race in
assessing and acquiring cultural capital today.

5. Methodology
This article’s primary data consist of 12 semi-structured one-on-one interviews with ESL
teachers working in Ho Chi Minh City. To obtain these data I made use of contacts acquired
during three months I spent as an ESL teacher. I employed snowball sampling, asking
acquaintances and former colleagues to inform suitable candidates of my research. I received
an immediate response, many teachers expressing a desire to share common experiences
they felt were not being reported. Although not seeking a representative sample, I did employ
some filters: I interviewed people from various companies to account for divergences and I
purposefully avoided over-representation of any nationality. All interviewees were guaran-
teed anonymity and that I would not publish data which could have negative repercussions
for current employment or future prospects. The interviews took place over May and June
2016, conducted in settings of the interviewee’s choosing, lasting between approximately
30 and 90 minutes. I interviewed eight men and four women, from the United Kingdom,
Germany, Australia, Ireland, the USA and Canada, aged between 22 and 31. One of the
teachers interviewed, Rebecca, was also a manager at her company. I spoke to her last in
order to obtain her specialist opinion on some of the issues raised in other interviews.
Preliminary findings were presented at a Vietnamese conference on education and inte-
gration. The presentation was well received, many attendees having worked in the ESL indus-
try. Several approached me afterwards wishing to share their experiences and I requested
they email me any relevant information. I was subsequently contacted by three attendees
and another individual who had been given my details: two men and two women, three
 6   D. HEWSON

Vietnamese and one American with Vietnamese parents, all with ESL teaching experience.
I corresponded with all four and met two in person for further discussion. Although this
article primarily draws from the original interviews, I have, with permission, included
several excerpts from these correspondences where illustrative.

6.  Results and discussion

6.1.  Discipline and assessment
A common theme among participants taking part in this research was to equate provision
of ESL education in Vietnam to operating ‘a business’. The profit-based incentive to attract
and satisfy ‘customers’ was identified behind many industry practices:
They go to primary schools, give out gift bags and games. Trying to get kids to sign up to the
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program. New customers. If you want them to keep coming back, keep paying, you need to
treat them well.
This conceptualisation of teaching as ‘business’, students as ‘customers’ and education as a
commodity is presented by market advocates as a positive development that puts the stu-
dent-customer first, responding to their needs and desires (Holborow 2007, 61). However,
the experiences of participants in this research indicate that such conceptions can under-
mine teachers and the learning process. One way this occurs is by impinging on teachers’
capacity to control a classroom and create an atmosphere conducive to learning. One par-
ticipant told me how the local teaching assistants warned her against punishing certain
students, restricting her ability to impose discipline:
They just say ‘oh that’s David, let David do his own thing. We don’t want David’s parents to
phone us again’.
Another told me how he had been allocated a notoriously unruly class and that, with
some effort and authority, he was eventually able to subdue them and establish a studious
environment. However, the disruptive students resented the changes and their parents
complained they were finding his lessons ‘boring’. The teacher’s employers sided with the
parents, instructing him to make his classes more ‘enjoyable’ and not be so strict.
Vietnamese parents and their money are the lifeblood of the private education industry,
some estimates indicating household spending on education may exceed the impressive
public investment (London 2011, 24). Much of this money is drawn from the emerging
Vietnamese upper and middle classes, which are the fastest growing in South East Asia
(VietNam News 2013). Parents from these classes are capable of drawing upon aspects of
their cultural capital: becoming ‘entitled’, ‘assertive’, ‘self certain’ and demanding value (Reay
2004, 77). Pleasing and pandering to these parents is a major priority for ESL companies and
consequently their employees. One means of achieving this is to cultivate a level of discipline
that is agreeable to parents and students, even though it may impede teachers and learning.
A further method for satisfying demanding parents involves creating a perception of pro-
gress, whether real or imagined. Two participants claimed that teaching assistants acting as
interpreters at parent–teacher meetings would nurture such a perception by encouraging
teachers to exaggerate students’ performances and intentionally mistranslating criticisms.
Another outlined how his company awarded performance medals with grading fixed to
‘nearly always [award] gold and silver’. Other teachers detailed more outright manipulations:
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION   7

They encourage you to give the kids high scores. Like, I gave them their real scores. There’s a
specific way to score the kids, so I followed the guidelines. And the TA [teaching assistant] says,
so dramatic like, ‘oh, I think Elsa’s mom will want her to have another teacher now because
she’s not doing well’. I just say like, ‘if you want to change the scores, change them, I don’t care’.
Marnie Holborow (2007, 61) asserts that in spite of efforts to reconceptualise it as such,
the student–teacher relationship can never be fully transformed to that of customer–supplier
because it necessarily entails elements of hierarchy, reciprocity and meritorious achievement.
However, this research indicates that when education is commodified, it is parents who are
conceptualised as customers and the companies compelled to meet their demands. This
conception erodes the supposedly inviolable aspects of the student–teacher relationship by
subverting traditional and necessary hierarchies and encouraging a duplicity that obscures
progress and undermines meritorious achievement. The following section explores the
effects of treating the provision of education as ‘a business’ on staff recruitment policies.
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6.2.  Qualifications and quality

Alan has a bachelor’s degree in social science. Five days after arriving in Vietnam he was
hired to teach mathematics and science, although he had little experience of either since
leaving school a decade previously:
They had a new syllabus, had some bare outline. I didn’t have a fucking clue what I was teaching
… I kept asking, saying ’I don’t know what the fuck I’m meant to be teaching!’. But others had
their own stuff to do I guess.
Alan’s experience is not unusual: being ‘thrown off the deep end’ and ‘sink or swim’ were
common themes during interviews. Another teacher told me how, in spite of never hav-
ing taught, planned or observed a lesson, she began teaching the day after her interview
equipped with a location and the instruction ‘have introduction lessons’. Only two of those
interviewed possessed prior teaching experience or related degrees, indicating the rarity of
such qualifications among ESL teachers. This was referenced by one teacher who told me
his employer’s website boasts:
all their teachers have proper teaching qualifications. It’s not true like. Sure, it’s all Arts degrees.
While pedagogical qualifications were rare, all teachers were required to obtain some form
of ESL certification. However, the status and standard of programmes granting certifica-
tion varied greatly. Some participants attended expensive, intensive courses incorporating
teaching practice and assessment. However, the majority obtained their certificates from
cut-price online courses and were generally dismissive of their value. Four teachers con-
fessed to cheating their online assessments and another informed me that scans of her cer-
tificate and bachelor’s degree were photoshopped forgeries. After one year she was pressed
to produce physical copies of her qualifications to process her work permit; she quit and
found a new job within a month, again using the forgeries. Although only a single teacher
admitted working with forged documents, others mentioned it as common practice, one
claiming that employers were ‘absolutely’ aware but ‘they don’t care. It’s still money for them’.
In general, qualifications and experience are not prioritised in the ESL industry; many
are able to find employment with ‘no teaching qualifications at all’ (Cheung and Sung 2012,
24). This situation is exacerbated in Vietnam, where high market demand ensures ‘most
centres end up hiring anybody who is a native speaker’ ‘regardless of qualification’ (Nguyen
2012, 263). Such an indiscriminate approach to recruitment raises questions not only of
 8   D. HEWSON

quality, but safety. Parents pay a lot of money for a service that a teacher may not have the
capacity to deliver. More worryingly, parents may be entrusting their children into the care
of individuals incapable of or unsuitable for such a responsibility. In order to obtain an
approximation of teaching standards, I questioned interviewees about their abilities and
those of their colleagues. While the majority were disparaging of their initial capabilities,
all felt they improved over time:
I think everyone figures it out for themselves. Admittedly this probably means that there are
a lot of shit lessons while you’re learning. But you get better.
Assessments of colleagues were much more mixed. All interviewees claimed to have
worked alongside skilled, committed teachers, but also poor ones. Speaking as a manager,
Rebecca acknowledged:
the abilities of our teachers vary vastly. We have some really, really good teachers, but we get
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some who … Some just aren’t suited to teaching.

Colleagues who had teaching experience in their home country were generally identified
as knowledgeable, organised and dedicated. Rebecca put this down to a ‘professional pride’,
lacking among ‘traveller types, who clearly don’t give a crap’. This assessment was echoed
by one of the Vietnamese educators I corresponded with, who claimed to have worked
alongside ‘backpackers’ and ‘bartenders’ who disliked children and ‘hate teaching’. One of
the major factors referenced as undermining teachers’ suitability and competence related
to consumption of alcohol and drugs. Several participants candidly alluded to a culture of
substance abuse among some teachers that impacted negatively on their work. However,
there seemed few repercussions for such behaviour:
You’d have to do something really bad to be fired. I’ve seen it happen if the parents complain.
But that’s just making extra work for themselves.
Rebecca knew of one case where a teacher had been dismissed for alcohol-related issues,
while another teacher admitted that alcohol and drugs were a factor in him missing so many
days that he was not offered a new contract. However, dismissals, when they did occur,
seemed motivated by financial concerns rather than those relating to ability or performance.
Participants claimed that dismissal at the beginning of a new term, when demand is at its
peak, is very rare. Rebecca confirmed:
It all depends on the time of the year. In a few weeks, we’re going to have shit. It’s the most
difficult time. We need twelve new teachers for the start of the year coming. We have to take
what we can get.
In contrast with reluctance to dismiss teachers during periods of high demand is the pro-
pensity to do so at the end of term to avoid holiday pay. One participant complained:
if there is a summer holiday, a lot of teachers will be let go, the company just hires more after.
Teachers who had done a good job to that point will just be let go to save a month’s salary.
Molnar and Garcia (2007) outline how such recruitment strategies, based on a ‘high turno-
ver’ of ‘young inexperienced teachers’ with ‘minimal level[s] of academic qualifications’, can
optimise profits for private education providers. This approach identifies teaching staff as the
main source of expenditure and recommends releasing teachers before their experience and
development elevates salaries and ‘erode[s] profitability’ (2007, 17–18). While such a strat-
egy appears rational if one conceives of education provision as ‘a business’, questions arise
regarding the level of education being delivered. The release of high quality, experienced
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION   9

teachers in order to save money deprives students of interaction with those teachers. This
is compounded by exposing those students to poor quality, potentially unsuitable teach-
ers during periods of high demand. The following section explores how the compulsion
to satisfy ‘customer’ demand has transformed education into a space of capital exchange
where prejudice prospers.

6.3.  Linguistic capital and prejudice

That qualifications and quality are not a primary concern within Vietnam’s ESL industry
resonates with research conducted by Pei-Chia Lan (2011, 1681) in Taiwan, where the
value of ESL teachers lies in their ‘racialised’ ‘native knowledge’ rather than any ‘achieved
skills’. The global spread of capitalism and markets’ preference for English has seen English
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speech patterns attain dominant status as valuable and prestigious commodities (Holborow
2007, 53; Shin 2007, 76). This was something recognised by participants in this research,
who identified value in their capacity to convey accents and mannerisms that Vietnamese
teachers were unable to. Such ‘pronunciations characteristic of class or region’ constitute
‘linguistic capital’: a facet of cultural capital consisting of ‘accent, grammar and vocabulary’,
embodied in the individual and reproducible for consumption in ‘a particular market’
(Bourdieu 1986, 84; Bourdieu and Thompson 1991, 18). In Vietnam, the linguistic capital
tied to English has long been synonymous with the writing and speech patterns of ‘native
speakers’ (Huong and Hiep 2010, 49). Although any person who speaks English as their
primary language technically qualifies as a native speaker, the linguistic capital associated
with native speech has become ‘highly racialised’ and predominantly ‘attached to white
skin’ (Lan 2011, 1670).
The racial element of their perceived value was referenced by all participants. Asked
about her qualifications, one teacher jokingly referenced her ‘blonde hair and blue eyes’.
Such dark humour masks a dark truth:
They don’t hire black people, Asian people. They didn’t at [place of previous employment] at all.
It’s so important to look the part and being white is a big part of that here.
One teacher told me his Filipino girlfriend, possessing superior qualifications and expe-
rience, works six-day weeks earning less than half his salary. Another told me of a highly
qualified African American teacher who could only find one school that would employ him
over five years. Another, wishing to provide evidence for his assertion that ‘they can be so
racist here’, emailed me a vacancy advertisement specifying ‘native speakers only’, along
with a preference for ‘white skin’ and concluding ‘NO FILIPINOS’. Demand for white native
speakers above all others seems driven by the preferences and prejudices of parents in their
role as customer, one teacher claiming ‘its common knowledge that the parents want to see
a white face teaching the kids’. Speaking as a manager, Rebecca acknowledged that racism
was a ‘huge issue’ in the industry. Although she claimed the managers she worked with were
not racist, she conceded they would readily accommodate racist attitudes when profitable:
I read them, see CVs, feedback, you know personal things. One that sticks in my head, I think
he was South American, not black, but dark skinned. And there’s a section on the interview
notes: Pros-Cons. And under ‘what could be improved’ they wrote ‘dark skin’.
The parents wouldn’t have it. They think they paid for a white person who speaks that way.
So that’s what they want.
 10   D. HEWSON

The Vietnamese educators I corresponded with all referenced the industry’s veneration of
white teachers and discrimination against others. One told me she had worked in a school
where two ‘very good’ Indian teachers ‘disappeared’ following complaints from parents
regarding their ethnicity. Another, raised by Vietnamese parents in the USA spoke both
fluent Vietnamese and English with an American accent; however, he found it difficult
to find work because ‘the kids’ parents want a white teacher’. He told me of one vacancy
where the interviewer expressed shock upon meeting him face-to-face after arranging the
interview over the telephone:
He said ‘I thought you were American’. I told him ‘I am American’. What he meant was white
American.
The teacher was not offered the job.
These experiences indicate that, contrary to Bourdieu’s (1986, 86) identification of aca-
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demic certification as the means through which cultural capital is institutionalised and
guaranteed, linguistic capital in Vietnam is primarily associated with and authorised by
whiteness. Teachers’ qualifications and capabilities are considered secondary to their com-
plexions, adding a racial element to Bourdieu’s theorisation of how privileges are transmit-
ted. Rather than being inherited and learned at home, these privileges are conferred through
a person’s genes, acting as certification of a linguistic capital that can be traded for other
types of capital. These findings resonate with Francis Collins’ (2014) research in South Korea,
where ‘idealis[ed]’ white native speakers exchange their excess ‘cultural capital’ for ‘social’
and ‘economic’ capital, and Lan’s (2011, 1670) Taiwanese study which documents similar
practices of capital conversion. What is particularly revealing about this research and the
situation in Vietnam is the role played by market demand, driven by parents as customers,
in perpetuating the privileging of whiteness and its association with linguistic capital.
Irene Bruegel (2006 as quoted in Byrne 2007, 435) repudiates the notion that decisions
made by parents are always correct, asserting that freedom of choice with regard to education
‘enables parents to act upon their prejudices, to the potential disadvantage of their children’.
In spite of parents’ demands, the benefits of children learning from white native speakers are
highly contested. A study conducted among local South Korean teachers heavily criticised
the adulation of ‘oral proficiency’ and ‘native speakers’, who they regarded to be lacking
‘pedagogical expertise’, ‘professional consciousness’ and ‘adequate training’ (Shin 2007, 80).
Questions have also been raised regarding the practicality of Vietnamese students learning
native speech patterns in a world where three in four English speakers are now non-native
(Huong and Hiep 2010, 49). Although participants in this research unanimously believed
students benefited from exposure to native speech, they all rejected and condemned its
exclusive affiliation with whiteness. Besides the objectionable discrimination endured by
non-white teachers, the erroneous conflation of race with the capacity to teach language
is detrimental to education quality. A white American with minimal qualifications, expe-
rience and references is no more capable of transmitting linguistic capital than an African
American in possession of a teaching degree and experience; however, this study indicates
that the former is more likely to be placed in charge of a Vietnamese classroom. Similarly, a
fluent Filipino teacher with experience learning and using English as their second language
theoretically possesses advantages over native speakers with regard to learning from stu-
dent perspectives (Cheung and Sung 2012, 24); however, such advantages apparently pale
in comparison to a paler complexion. The fetishisation of whiteness, combined with the
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION   11

conceptualisation of parents as customers who must have everything satisfied, including

their prejudice, discriminates against non-white teachers, depriving them from contrib-
uting and depriving students of their contribution. The next section further explores the
value attached to whiteness and its association with a style of teaching that goes beyond the
provision of linguistic capital, fitting broader definitions of ‘cultural capital’.

6.4.  Cultural capital

Although all participants recognised and condemned discrimination against non-native
speakers, they also believed themselves endowed with specific, unique qualities beneficial
to their students. All expressed the belief that they taught English in a different ‘style’ to
Vietnamese teachers. This style went beyond linguistic differences, incorporating a distinc-
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tive approach to instruction, one teacher explaining ‘we are supposed to be entertainers.
Like even more interactive and energetic’. This requirement to combine education with
entertainment could be interpreted as a conscious break with the rigid Confucian model, or
a consumer-orientated imposition; in any case, interviewees were generally positive about it.
They contrasted their style with the autocratic approach preferred by Vietnamese teachers
who, as one participant put it, ‘just sit at the top of the class and read out, you know, get the
kids to write it down’. Another compared the local approach with ineffective methods he
had endured as a child learning his native language:
Like with Irish. The teacher reads it out and you just copy it down. You don’t learn that way,
you know? You learn better from speaking and interacting.
In spite, or in ignorance, of Vietnam’s impressive performances in standardised inter-
national testing, there was a feeling among participants that the quality of Vietnamese
education was inferior to that of the West. This was deemed especially true with regard to
teaching creativity and critical thinking:
Try to get them to do something creative like write a story, or answer with their own thoughts.
They just stare back at you.
Its cliché, but you try to teach outside the box
Teachers and the companies they work for seem to believe it possible and/or profitable to
transmit this type of thinking through the medium of ESL. Students learn from western
textbooks and literature, are taught to write in an expressive style and are prompted to
partake in classroom discussions. Companies emphasise this approach to learning and
even formalise it: adopting foreign curriculums, examinations and teaching programmes.
Molnar and Garcia (2007, 17) dub such practices curriculum ‘branding’: the repackaging
of education as an attractive, ‘identifiable product’. This marketing of western teaching,
learning and thinking transcends the promotion of practical language skills and even lin-
guistic capital. It represents a commodification of ‘cultural capital’ in its broadest sense, as
a series of ‘dispositions’, a ‘socially constituted cognitive capacity’ (Bourdieu 1986, 84, 91).
Supposedly transferable through education, this capacity represents a homogeneous set of
attitudes, behaviours and cultural codes (Mills 2008, 83-84) privileged and promoted by
markets and consumed by parents and students.
This rapid global diffusion of western approaches and all they entail is not without con-
troversy. Molnar and Garcia (2007, 17) argue that ‘branded’ curriculums designed for use
among native speakers in distant countries inevitably fail to account for local needs and
 12   D. HEWSON

nuance, and can actively obstruct the autonomy and flexibility that market advocates claim
the market promotes. Suresh Canagarajah (2002) claims that, as with global trade, western
styles and syllabi enjoy an ‘unfair monopoly’ backed by superior resources that promote
their product while denigrating others. He asserts that such approaches are infused with
‘cultural’ and ‘ideological’ elements and, contradicting participants in this research, regards
their propagation as ‘an assault on alternative styles of thinking and learning’ that actually
limits critical thought (2002, 135–136). Deborah Cameron (2002, 69) has also critiqued the
spread of western teaching styles, identifying their prominence as an ‘ethnocentric’ approach
to language instruction that goes beyond traditional ‘linguistic imperialism’ and imposes
‘particular’ ‘norms, genres and speech styles’. Bourdieu himself recognised how neoliberal-
ism imposes such homogenising preferences through the market, restricting choices rather
than expanding them (Holborow 2007, 58–59). The Vietnamese government has taken
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steps to resist such impositions, attempting to harness English as a force to ‘take pride’ in
and spread Vietnamese ‘culture’, rather than erode it (Van Van 2011, 11). There is a certain
irony in the Communist Government’s struggle to maintain cultural diversity against the
‘free’ market’s imposition of a ‘drab’ linguistic and cultural uniformity that Holborow (2007,
52) declares ‘would have made a Soviet bloc bureaucrat blush’.
In spite of these large-scale criticisms, the high demand for western cultural capital
alludes to the advantages it can hold for individuals. All teachers in this research believed
that western approaches to teaching improved students’ critical, creative and language skills.
Although they differed over whether such learning experiences represented value for money,
they unanimously believed them positive:
There are good and bad … But overall it definitely helps.
Some of the students are even better than the teachers. A lot are going to higher education in
America, Canada and Australia. I really think we have contributed to that.
In a rapidly homogenising global market that privileges English, the cultivation of linguistic
capital elevates one’s voice amid the ‘hierarchy of valued registers’, while cultural capital facil-
itates access to, and activity within, schools, networks and other institutions (Canagarajah
2002, 135). Reay et al. (2007, 1042 and 1049) contend that in spite of modern narratives
praising diversity and difference, it is actually a ‘sameness’ founded upon white, middle-class
cultural values that an individual must acquire and exhibit in order to be considered ‘of
value’. Aspirations for, and acquisition of, such ‘sameness’ may be corrosive to local culture,
antithetical to the ‘outside the box’ free thinking participants believed themselves to be
nurturing and generally objectionable to sensibilities, but for Vietnamese students wishing
to study, work or travel in a globalised world, the advantages conferred may be invaluable.
While participants’ testimonies and market demand attest to the advantages and privi-
leges that come with cultural capital, issues remain regarding the practicalities of conferring
it through private ESL education. This research found that, as with linguistic capital, the
racialisation of cultural capital and its association with whiteness raises questions concern-
ing the effectiveness and extent of such transmission. Hyunjung Shin’s (2007, 79) study of
ESL education in South Korea reveals how ‘native speakers’ are idealised as the primary
source of ‘authentic’ English language and ‘culture’, often at the expense of more qualified
and capable, local educators. Lan (2011, 1681) describes such perceptions as a ‘cultural halo’,
through which white native speakers are bathed in the reflected glory of ‘superior’ ‘Western
modernity, values and lifestyles’. This mentality also prevails in Vietnam, where salaries,
 BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION   13

lifestyles and freedoms enjoyed by white teachers help foster a self-replicating perception.
As one teacher stated:
They see white people as successful and think ‘oh this is what success is’, then they want it.
A revealing example of how cultural capital is tied to race in Vietnam can be found in
reactions to a 2012 initiative to employ 100 Filipino ESL teachers in Ho Chi Minh City
public schools. Although the MOET considered the teachers practical and cost-effective,
a limited study based on the comments section of a popular news website reveals 94% of
responses were negative. Explaining their opposition, one commentator reasoned there was
more to English than ‘just the language’, it was also crucial to learn the ‘culture’ and ‘soul’.
Another argued that, although they were more costly, native speakers were superior because
they were capable of sharing the ‘behaviours and world views’ derived from ‘the highest
civilisations of all mankind’ (Doan 2012). Similar attitudes are documented by Lan (2011,
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1679) in Taiwan, where ‘superior’ white native speakers are described as ‘white angels close
to God’ and Filipinos denigrated as ‘black demons, close to earth’.
This rejection of Asian teachers in favour of white native speakers supposedly endowed
with the correct cultural capital stands in contrast to Bourdieusian analyses conducted in
the West, which document how white middle-class parents seek association and education
among ‘people like us’, in ‘opposition’ to the classified, racialised ‘other’ (Byrne 2009, 432).
The practices of western parents, who employ excess cultural capital to secure academic
success and subsequent economic capital amidst ‘people like us’, are reversed in Vietnam
where middle-class parents are using their newfound economic capital to purchase cultural
capital from people unlike us . However, the exclusive attachment of cultural capital to ‘peo-
ple unlike us’ raises doubts about the degree of its transferability to Vietnamese children. If
fluent, experienced Asian teachers are not considered to posses the correct ‘culture’, ‘soul’,
‘behaviours’ and ‘views’, then to what extent can Vietnamese students expect to absorb and
exhibit them? Although acquisition of cultural capital and associated privileges through
ESL education does appear viable, questions remain regarding its use value, as opposed to
its marketable value.
Finally, one consequence of capital transfer that is beyond the limited scope of this study
but worth considering concerns its potentially polarising impact on Vietnamese society. The
ability to access cultural capital is typically limited to those who already enjoy the benefits
of economic capital (Bourdieu 1986, 87) and, in spite of the criticisms already raised, the
advantages derived continue to render cultural capital a desirable, if costly, commodity.
The spread of private ESL education and the privileges it confers exacerbates inequalities
between those who can afford it and those who cannot (Shin 2007, 77). The economic and
social rewards that cultural capital provides access to possess the self-replicating character
held by all forms of capital and are thus likely to contribute to an expanding social and
economic divide.

7. Conclusion
Over the past 30  years Vietnam has undergone a series of momentous, largely positive
changes that have opened the nation to outside investment and influences. Regarded as a key
aspect of continued integration and development, the global language of English has been
the subject of much public and private investment. Driven by demand and profits, private
 14   D. HEWSON

ESL education has doubtlessly contributed to improving national proficiency and the skills
and capitals they purvey may prove highly beneficial to Vietnamese students as they attempt
to navigate a globalised, market-orientated world. However, despite the benefits, there are
also negative features relating to private provision of ESL instruction: the findings of this
research revealing a series of disreputable practices and several negative consequences of
education commodification.
Firstly, conceptualising education as ‘a business’ and parents as customers who must
have all preferences satisfied undermines the student–teacher relationship, the teacher’s
capacity to instil discipline and principles of meritorious achievement and assessment.
Secondly, a profit-driven approach to recruitment and lax regulation has created a situation
where unqualified and unsuitable teachers are hired and retained and experienced educa-
tors dismissed, based on the whims of supply and demand. Recruitment policies which
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prioritise customer preference also nurture customer prejudice: this research finding that
ESL education is being used as a means to exchange economic capital for racially certified
linguistic and cultural capital. Unable to transmit such capital themselves in the traditional
hereditary manner, due to the political situation and isolation that preceded Doi Moi, mid-
dle-class Vietnamese parents are purchasing it through ‘people unlike us’: native speakers
endorsed by their whiteness. This market actively discriminates against non-white speakers,
again depriving students of potentially high-quality teachers while exposing them to those
unqualified and unsuitable, and also raising questions regarding the potential value of such
capital to Vietnamese children. Finally, the reality behind the branding and promotion of
cultural capital, embodied in western curriculums, teaching styles and thought, is somewhat
dubious. Although participants spoke enthusiastically about opening minds, others regard
such approaches as market-driven impositions that homogenise cultures and actively limit
critical thinking.
Today, nations across the world are tasked with striking a balance between the economic
imperative to increase English proficiency and the desire to preserve national culture, val-
ues and laws. Cultural concessions, lax regulations and toleration of ‘common practices
that deviate from legal regulations’ (Lan 2011, 1678) may be the price of swifter fluency.
However, Vietnam’s tumultuous and insular past renders the country particularly pliant
when it comes to compromise. The politics of the Vietnam War and its victors engendered
a dearth of the relevant linguistic capital, and indeed cultural capital, so desired by the now
rapidly growing middle and upper classes. Unable to satisfy demand, the state has relin-
quished control, allowing education providers to operate ‘as a business’ and function with
minimal regulation. This research finds that, in spite of the acknowledged benefits, such a
commodification of education has serious repercussions relating to the quality of education
being delivered and for those delivering and receiving it.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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