Teaching in the right context: Textbook supply program, language, and learning
Publication Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
1-2023
Abstract
An ethnic gap in education is prevalent around the world. This remains the case in Vietnam, a country that has achieved phenomenal economic growth and raised the educational attainment of the public. This paper examines the impact of language policy reorientation represented by the textbook supply program in Vietnam on the ethnic gap in children's learning measured by a vocabulary test. Applying difference-in-differences estimation to the Young Lives data between 2006 and 2015, we show that the program became more effective in narrowing the ethnic gap as the education policy became reoriented toward ethnic minority children. A causal mediation analysis reveals that increased study time is possibly a moderate mediator through which the language policy reorientation helped narrow the ethnic gap for the young cohort over and above the direct impact, but this was not the case for the old cohort. This paper, therefore, alludes to the importance of delivering learning materials carefully designed for the target group to bring about meaningful behavioral changes. It also underscores the importance of teaching in the right context, corroborating the findings from recent studies on teaching at the right level.
Keywords
Vietnam, difference in differences, ethnic minority, mediation, PPVT
Discipline
Asian Studies | Education | Growth and Development | Race and Ethnicity
Research Areas
Applied Microeconomics
Publication
Review of Development Economics
ISSN
1363-6669
Identifier
10.1111/rode.12978
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
FUJII, Tomoki; NAKAJIMA, Maki; and XU, Sujia.
Teaching in the right context: Textbook supply program, language, and learning. (2023). Review of Development Economics.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2676
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12978