Articulating a deficit perspective: a survey of the attitudes of post-primary English language support teachers and coordinators

Abstract

Issues related to supporting the language of schooling have become important social and educational policy concerns in Ireland. This article reports on a three-year investigation of the micro-climate of English language support provision in 70 post-primary schools since 2007 and highlights potential points of leverage in the educational system for improving language minority migrant student achievement. It argues that language minority migrant students have equality of presence in our classrooms but this is not securing equality of participation or achievement. While fundamentally challenging a prevailing political credo that Ireland has a unique moral, intellectual and practical capability to adapt to the experience of inward migration, the views of language support teachers at the ‘chalkface’ also reveal a lack of engagement with wider issues of power, language and identity in the classroom as well as with the important role of parental involvement in migrant student education. Contrary to best intercultural and inclusive paradigms, a monolingual deficit model which emphasises the child's linguistic limitations is widely established in our post-primary schools.