This study examines the disproportionately poor academic performance of the Hmong
among the minorities in Vietnam by using Ogbu’s cultural ecological theory (Ogbu,
2003). Societal and school factors have been assumed by many policy makers and
scholars to affect minorities’ equally, but the paper argues that may not be the case when
minority status is taken into account. “Community forces” are pointed to as the putative
cause of the Hmong’s differential academic performance. “Community forces” of each
ethnic group are related to their status as a minority group, which orients their
interpretations and responses to schooling. In this paper, the minority status of the Hmong
is explained through their group development history, settlement patterns, livelihoods and
economic adaptive strategies and political participation through a review of the scholarly
literature on the Hmong. Additionally, field research was conducted in Vietnam using a
grounded theory approach to ethnography to understand how minority status influences
community forces, and in turn, how these community forces affect the schooling of
Hmong students.