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The purpose of this paper is to review both international and domestic (i.e. Vietnamese language) journal articles and graduate theses and dissertations on educational leadership in Vietnam. The review addresses two specific goals: first, to describe and critically assess the nature of the formal knowledge base on principal leadership in Vietnam, second, to synthesize findings from the existing literature on principal leadership in Vietnam.

The paper employed a method for conducting systematic reviews of research. The authors conducted a detailed, exhaustive search for international and “local” papers from Vietnam, yielding 120 research sources. Information from these papers was extracted and evaluated prior to analysis. Data analysis included both quantitative description of the “review database” as well as critical synthesis of substantive findings.

The review supports and extends an earlier review which found that the practice of educational leadership in Vietnam remains largely “invisible” to the international community of scholars. The review also yielded a highly critical assessment of research perspectives and methods used in the “local” Vietnamese studies which comprised the bulk of the authors’ database. Synthesis of substantive findings highlighted the manner by which organizational, political, and socio-cultural forces in the Vietnamese context shapes the practice of school leadership.

First, qualitative studies are recommended that seek to describe, in-depth, the enactment of leadership in the Vietnamese context. Second, broad-scale surveys of characteristics, attitudes, and beliefs of school leaders across Vietnam are warranted. Third, the authors encourage graduate students and scholars studying school leadership in Vietnam to undertake a new generation of theory-informed studies that connect with the global literature.

Due to the relatively weak nature of the existing knowledge base, the authors were unable to identify specific implications for leadership practice. However, practical implications are identified for developing the research capacity needed to improve research quality in Vietnam’s universities.

This review is the first systematic review of educational leadership and management conducted of the Vietnamese literature. Moreover, the authors suggest that the review is original in its comprehensive coverage of both the local and international literature on educational leadership in Vietnam.

Worldwide interest in principal instructional leadership has led to global dissemination of related research findings despite their concentration in a limited set of western cultural contexts. An urgent challenge in educational leadership and management lies in expanding the range of national settings for investigations of instructional leadership. The current study addressed this challenge in the context of Vietnam, a nation with a very limited formal knowledge base in school leadership (Hallinger and Bryant, 2013b; Hallinger and Truong, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to describe the perspectives of Vietnamese primary school principals toward their role as instructional leaders, illuminate instructional leadership practices perceived as important by the principals, and develop a preliminary model of instructional leadership within the Vietnamese education context.

This study was a qualitative inquiry that sought to illuminate the perspectives of Vietnamese principals toward their role as instructional leaders. The research employed semi-structured interviews with 27 primary school principals. Data analysis employed grounded theory in order to synthesize results gathered from the principals into a preliminary conceptual model.

The study yielded a preliminary model of principal instructional leadership in Vietnam. The authors’ model evidences similarities to western models of instructional leadership by including dimensions focusing on setting direction, managing curriculum and instruction and developing the school learning climate. Differences also emerged in terms of two additional constructs, building solidarity and managing external relationships. Other distinctive practices of Vietnamese instructional leaders also emerged in the findings which the authors suggest can be linked to the institutional, political and socio-cultural context of education in this society.

Key limitations arise from the focus on primary schools, small size of the sample, absence of data from the Northern region of Vietnam, and lack of verification of principals’ perspectives with data from other stakeholders.

This study is one of the first empirical studies of Vietnamese school leadership submitted for publication in international refereed journals and the first study that has that sought to conceptualize the instructional leadership role of principals in Vietnam. Moreover, the study illustrates how conceptualizations of school leadership are shaped by features of specific societies. This lends credence to scholarly admonitions concerning the lack of universality of leadership theories.

This article traces the transformation of hát bội, a form of traditional opera in Southern Vietnam, from its primary role as entertainment into a religious activity after the Reform (Đổi Mới) were enacted in 1986.

This research is based on ethnological fieldwork complemented by a review of historical documents and of the available literature on hát bội, cultural policies and on data collected from interviews with artists and spectators at the festival at the shrine to the Lady of the Realm.

Before 1986, hát bội was performed either as a stand-alone entertainment during the fair portion of community festivals or as part of religious ceremonies. The Reform and the accompanying relaxation of state control over religion and culture promoted the resurgence of popular religious fairs across the nation. New opportunities for hát bội to revive opened, artists left state-sponsored troupes to join private companies that catered to religious festivals. But almost exclusive involvement in religious rites has led to artistic stasis for private hát bội troupes.

This research constitutes novel insights of how the Reform in Vietnam affects the transformation of a traditional performance form.

The purpose of this paper is to concern the community festival of a Jing minority village in the China–Vietnam border area. Since it was designated as a national-level Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2006, the festival has undergone many changes. The festival has steadily expanded and evolved, assuming characteristics of globalization. How is the globalized character of the Wanwei festival manifested? What are the forces behind the elevation of this local festival onto the register of national events and how did it turn into an event organized by the township?

The paper is based on the results of the author’s research on the culture of Kinh people in Wanwei from 2000 to the present. From the anthropological approach, the author mainly uses method of participant observation and in-depth interviews. The author has observed the Wanwei communal festival from 2000 to the present, interviewing about 40 villagers in Wanwei in depth, they can be leaders, intellectuals, civil servants, officials or working people.

The paper is a case study of the new aspect of globalization of a village festival. The author argues that globalization can lead to a spread of global flows but in this process of globalization, villagers also want to define the local identity, they reinvent the tradition, rewrite history, create new nuances for the gods with many different purposes. Practicing the current Wanwei village festival is a vivid example of globalization from below and the politics of tradition.

The paper adds a theoretical dimension to current globalization research. The paper also points out the political, economic and social dynamics that govern the transformation of a village festival in particular and the village culture in general in the border areas. The paper is a testament to the dynamism and flexibility of villagers when participating in the current globalization process.