Suchergebnisse

This article focuses on the refugees from former French Indochina—who they are, where they have resettled in the United States, and their integration into the American work force. Most of the data reported here are on the Vietnamese, who are by far the largest number of refugees from Indochina in the United States. Vietnamese entering the country were, for the most part, well educated, young, and accompanied by their families. Initially they were scattered through the country by U.S. voluntary agencies that took responsibility for resettlement. Since initial resettlement, there has been considerable secondary migration within the United States that has resulted in the formation of refugee communities. In the United States, Vietnamese have experienced considerable occupational and social downward mobility. They have entered the American work force at rates comparable to native-born Americans. However, they have taken jobs that pay at best the minimum wage, and, while employment rates are high, they remain dependent on the American welfare system for survival.

The historiography of French colonial educational policy and practice has advanced considerably over the past decade. Not long ago W. Bryant Mum-ford's allegation, "Africans learn to be French," was taken literally, and most scholars presumed that France, either out of cultural arrogance or blind reflex, brought metropolitan schooling in undiluted form to her colonies. We know better now. Recent studies of education in French West Africa and Indochina have suggested that colonial schools were not only adapted to the colonial context, but taught the students a great deal about their own societies. This article focuses on the knowledge that the two basic school levels, the elementary and primary, distributed about indigenous society in two French colonial federations—French West Africa and Indochina—in the period 1918–38 and speculates as to why the content and distribution of that knowledge took the forms they did. The discussion is based on analysis of texts in use in the primary schools, government curriculum guides, and student school notebooks. It begins with a brief survey of the structure of the educational system and curriculum of the schools as a whole, then proceeds to an analysis of the presentation of indigenous society in the schools.