Tracing the Confucian Legacy: Mechanisms Shaping the Geographical Educational Achievement Gap in Vietnam

Thao Pham, University of Wisconsin - Madison

This study examines how historical state formation influences contemporary educational inequality in Vietnam. Using time since annexation as a continuous treatment variable, I decompose effects on provincial achievement (measured by the density of students scoring at or above the national 90th percentile in Mathematics, Literature, and Foreign Language) into two pathways: Confucian elite density and Confucian institutional infrastructure from feudal eras. Provinces incorporated earlier into the state exhibit higher present day achievement on national high school examinations. The institutional infrastructure pathway captures formal Confucian educational institutions established during the Nguyen dynasty, Vietnam’s last feudal dynasty, including provincial examination halls, Confucian temples, and district schools that administered the imperial civil service examination system. Mediation analysis reveals that the institutional infrastructure pathway is the dominant and most robust mechanism, accounting for most or all of the total effect for mathematics and literature, whereas the elite density pathway is substantially weaker and less consistent across subjects. These findings demonstrate how historical institutional exposure persists primarily through tangible, geographically fixed educational infrastructure rather than through elite networks alone, perpetuating regional disparities in educational attainment.

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 Presented in Session 34. Sustained Interventions in Schooling: Case Studies from Around the World