High-school students’ perception of the American War through literature: a case study from Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present case study explores the reception of American War literature among Vietnamese high-school students. In April and May 2020, seventy-seven seventeen-year-old students from Lê Hồng Phong High School for the Gifted (Hồ Chí Minh City) participated in this study by answering Google form surveys about literary texts that form part of the Vietnamese national curriculum. The main findings show that 86% of the students deem it necessary to study literary works about the American War because of the historical and documentary value they provide. A vast majority of participants (95%) would be interested in reading literary texts written by American authors to learn about the war from a transnational perspective. This would require an alternative approach to the teaching of the American War in general, and its literary works in particular, with a revision of the national curriculum to include a wider variety of texts and authors.