“Needs to Put in More Effort”: How Teacher Deficit Beliefs Frame the Moral Worth of Latinx Children and Families in School-based Discourses

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents an ethnographic case study of how deficit beliefs shape the ways teachers call upon Latinx emergent bilinguals and families to engage in the schooling process. Informed by theories of language socialization, this study examines how one second-grade bilingual teacher called upon students and families of Mexican origin to demonstrate moral responsibility for schooling. Findings indicate how the teacher invoked a neoliberal moral discourse to critique student and parent effort and attempted to remediate the “low” literacy levels of three students by emphasizing the importance of hard work for success. In their homes, the students and families used various strategies to fulfill the teacher’s raciolinguistic expectations for the display of hard work but remained marginalized from engagement in school-based routines.