Deficit Discourses Research Articles

Achievement, well-being and relationship building: investigating teachers’ values in practice with migrant students and families in Québec, Canada

ABSTRACT In Québec, Canada, although the Ministry of Education emphasises the importance of addressing ethnocultural, linguistic, and religious diversity in schools, gaps persist in practice. Among them are insufficient initial training and variability in practices. Recognising that values, attitudes, and convictions shape educational practices, this article examines their influence on educators’ approaches to working with migrant students, with the aim of informing reflections on initial and continuous training. A thematic analysis of 12 practice stories from primary school teachers and a principal highlights values and convictions centred on student achievement and well-being. The analysis also underscores the significance of rapport-building with parents, reflecting educators’ commitment to fostering students’ achievement. However, a lack of critical reflection on these concepts often reinforces deficit discourses and monocultural norms, limiting the transformative potential of inclusive education. The article concludes with implications for training programmes to better equip education professionals to support diverse students and their families.

Spatial fluencies: acts of navigation and negotiation in the postdigital learning environment

ABSTRACT Spatial fluency describes the ability and confidence of an individual to navigate and negotiate their experiences in a postdigital world. This paper reflects on teaching and learning experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and its aftermath, and on the volatile nature of social media, and the threats and opportunities afforded by AI. It argues that having digital skills and knowledge is not sufficient for educators, students or graduates to deal with challenging situations and opportunities in a volatile world of ubiquitous and pervasive media. Instead, spatial fluency establishes a multimodal framing for considering learning spaces, tools, and media and their configuration as productive environments. People need to be critical, creative and confident users of physical and digital spaces, tools and media, understanding them holistically as interconnected spaces. Active learning strategies can help students to navigate, negotiate, and enhance their experiences of multimodal spaces and develop their fluency through diverse practices. Several vignettes are presented that situate spatial fluency in terms of learner agency, spatial affordances, wayfinding and desire paths, and formalities. It is argued that spatial fluency, therefore, provides teachers, students and organisations with an alternative to deficit discourses centred on skills. At its core is developing a person’s agency to critically analyse the postdigital environment and its spatial affordances.

From teacher surplus to teacher shortage and its effects on teacher education: the Portuguese case

ABSTRACT Drawing on official data, this article looks at the phenomenon of teacher shortage in Portugal and its implications for teacher education. It includes a quantitative analysis of needs of the system to renew the teaching workforce alongside aspects of mass teacher retirement and a decline in teaching candidates. Issues such as negative media portrayal, intensification of teachers’ work, and reactive policies to teacher recruitment and teacher education have contributed to the declining status of the teaching profession. The paper discusses the danger of adopting a ‘deficit discourse’ in teacher education along with the shift towards managerial professionalism, which could erode the quality and status of the profession. It is argued that there is a need to go beyond quick-fixes and emergency responses and to invest in a comprehensive, long-term strategy that balances both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of teacher recruitment and teacher education.

‘Attitude Problems’: Racializing Hierarchies of Affect in Post‐Brown U.S. Science Education

ABSTRACTAttending to the affect of minoritized students now appears crucial to promoting just and dignity‐affirming science education. Yet, elevating affect as an objective of science learning has a history that predates equity reforms. This study explores the politics of scientific uptakes of affect that have long served to mark hierarchical differences between students. As part of the special issue Centering Affect and Emotion Toward Justice and Dignity in Science Education, this paper investigates how U.S. science classrooms became sites of affective intervention, especially aimed at Black, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Indigenous students. As a history of the present, the study examines research journals and curricular reform materials between the 1954 Brown desegregation ruling and a 1989 equity report. The analysis suggests that shifts in post‐Brown U.S. science education made it possible to order students along affective hierarchies that: (1) established differential emotional regimes for those classified as ‘culturally deprived’ versus ‘gifted’; (2) equated human dignity with developing a depoliticized scientific self; and (3) evaded questions of racism and cultural imposition, while enforcing onto‐epistemic hierarchies. The study explores implications for current science education scholarship by considering how three extant concerns—deficit discourses, the dichotomization of science from political activism, and assimilationist models of scientist‐like affect—stem in part from the field's own responses to racial desegregation and civil rights demands. The purpose of historicizing affect in science education is to unsettle the racializing premises, normalizing constructs, and depoliticizing effects of social science techniques inherited from our not‐so‐distant past.

Māori and Pasifika Whānau expertise and experiences in the ear and hearing health system in the Counties Manukau Region, Auckland

ABSTRACT Unaddressed hearing loss and middle ear problems have lifelong implications for speech and language development, social skills, education, and future employment opportunities. In Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori and Pasifika peoples are overrepresented in ear and hearing health statistics and experience many unmet needs. Despite the promise of equal outcomes under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, there is a well-established body of literature reporting poor health-related outcomes for Māori and Pasifika peoples. Tamariki (children) and their whānau (families) face a range of multi-factorial barriers when accessing ear and hearing health services. This study aims to explore the experiences of Māori and Pasifika whānau accessing these services in the Counties Manukau region, Auckland. The research was guided by Kaupapa Māori and Pan-Pacific research principles, which aim to address power relationships in research, critique deficit discourses, and maintain high quality standards for Māori and Pacific health research. Six whānau interviews were conducted and thematic analysis of data resulted in three themes – Whānau are experts, Power and control, and What makes a good ear and hearing health service. In addition, Māori and Pasifika whānau made suggestions for improvements in ear and hearing healthcare, which will inform larger scale ear and hearing health projects in NZ. Glossary of Māori words: hapū: kinship group, clan, tribe, subtribe – section of a large kinship group; iwi: tribe, nation, people, nationality, race; karakia: prayer, grace, blessing; lotu: prayer, blessing; Māori: normal, ordinary, indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand; mokopuna: grandchild, great-nephew or great-niece; Pākehā: (Te Reo Māori) European; Papa'a: (Cook Island Māori) European; raranga: weaving; tamariki: children; taonga: treasure; Tauiwi: (Te Reo Māori) non-Māori people of Aotearoa New Zealand; Te Taiao: world; Earth; natural world; environment; tikanga: correct procedure, custom, method, manner, rule, way, code, practice; wāhine: woman, female; whakapapa: genealogy; lineage; descent; whānau: extended family network, family group.

Impact of healthy pregnancy and lifestyle in mothers on developmental delay in their offspring: a strength-based analysis of a longitudinal study among indigenous children in Australia

IntroductionExtensive literature has investigated the prenatal risk factors of developmental delay in children, with evidence highlighting the impact of prenatal health, mental health, and behavioural factors. While a deficit discourse has underscored Indigenous health research and policies, strengths-based approaches provide an opportunity to reframe this discourse, to illustrate and celebrate the strength and resilience of Australian Indigenous families. As such, this study aimed to identify the protective impact of healthy pregnancy and lifestyle in mothers on developmental delay in Indigenous Australian children; and whether it varies by child birthweight adjusted for gestational age. Further, we also tested whether child birthweight for adjusted gestational age mediates the association between a healthy pregnancy and lifestyle in mothers and developmental delay in their Indigenous offspring.MethodsStrength-based analysis was conducted using data from 8 longitudinal waves of LSIC study in Australia. Random-effect models were used to longitudinally measure the impact of maternal healthy pregnancy and lifestyle on developmental delays in their children between 2008 and 2018. A composite score (ranging from 0 to 3, score = 3 refers to most healthy pregnancy) was created for a healthy pregnancy and lifestyle variable using three criteria − (1) a lack of medical conditions, (2) no substance use including smoking/alcohol/illicit drugs, and (3) intake of iron/folic acid during pregnancy. All models were adjusted for potential covariates.ResultsOf the 780 mother-child dyads analysed, 65.4% of mothers reported healthy pregnancy and lifestyle; while 73.5% of children born with a recommended appropriate birthweight adjusted for gestational age, and 91.4% reported no developmental delays. In children born in the recommended range of appropriate birthweight adjusted for gestational age, healthy pregnancy in mothers (most healthy, aOR: 4.76, 95% CI: 1.12–20.18; and 2nd most healthy, aOR: 4.02, 95% CI: 1.09–14.83) was protective against development delay compared to maternal unhealthy pregnancy. Living in remote areas (vs. major city, and regional) was also found to be protective against developmental delay in those who were born within the recommended range of birthweight adjusted for gestational age. Further, the current study found that child birthweight for adjusted gestational age does not have any mediating effect on the association between healthy pregnancy in mothers and developmental delay in their children.ConclusionThis strengths-based study suggests healthy pregnancy in mothers should be advocated to prevent developmental delay in their offspring in the Australian Indigenous population. The findings also found living in remote areas has a protective effect against developmental delay in Indigenous children who born within the recommended range of birthweight adjusted for gestational age. These findings have implications for challenging and reframing the deficit discourse surrounding Indigenous Australian health research and policymaking. Further studies are needed to investigate the positive relationship between Indigenous Australians’ health and social and emotional well-being (SEWB) and their connection to their country and culture.

The complexity of leading for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' success in schools

ABSTRACT School leaders in Australia have responsibilities to support First Nations student engagement. In Australia, where Reconciliation is unfinished business, this work requires leaders to negotiate a complex set of arrangements that are often associated with deficit approaches. This paper attempts to disrupt these deficit discourses by researching the management of school reforms for success in student engagement. We analyze survey and interview responses of 40 participants who reflect on their school leadership practices using a framework of Leading for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student success. The findings reveal that school leaders can be agents of decolonizing agendas to position schools as allies for the aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Making citizens, procedures, and outcomes: Theorizing politics in a co-productionist idiom.

The literature engaging political theory in STS often puts forward a deficit model view of STS, in which homegrown STS ideas about politics, such as co-production, are either treated as having an insufficient account of the political or not read as political theory at all. This article challenges the deficit discourse by reading co-production as a full-blown political theory in its own right, in particular by showing how it investigates normative questions of 'the good' that are central to any theorization of politics. Where political theory often concerns itself with the construction and application of universal political ideals-such as of the good citizen, legitimate procedures or smart outcomes-co-production looks at empirical sites where citizens, procedures, and outcomes articulate understandings of the good held by political actors in situ. By looking at the making of citizens, procedures, and outcomes in practice, we can better understand co-production as political theory. In particular, co-production elaborates on how the making of citizens, procedures, and outcomes constitute (and are constituted by) ideal normative positions, including: authoritative views about what citizens may claim to know, culturally-situated understandings of procedural legitimacy, and political values and ideologies embedded in seemingly 'objective' measurements of outcomes.

Horizons of Possibility—Young People’s Encounters with Nature and Their Qualities in Social Programs

AbstractThis article presents an analysis of young people’s encounters with nature within a context of social programs. In the intersection between nature and social initiatives, nature is often defined as something that contains a range of inherent properties that can have a positive impact on various aspects of young people’s lives—such as their well-being, development and learning. However, there is a lack of analyses that focus on the manifold, diverse and divergent exchanges and liaisons that young people’s encounters with nature can give rise to. Based on an approach, where humans and nature are considered so intertwined that one cannot be meaningfully understood without the other (Haraway 2021, Latour 2005), the aim of the article is to shed light on the many different types of entanglements and interconnections that unfold in young people’s encounters with nature, as well as on the processes of becoming they are associated with. Drawing on a qualitative study, the article develops a typology of six significant types of entanglements and interconnections between young people and nature. It is a characteristic of these entanglements and interconnections that they unfold depending on how the encounters between young people and nature are framed by the social programs. They are thus not defined by already known outcomes, but can be understood as ‘figurations’ (Braidotti 1994), that contain both a lived here and now and an ‘imagined elsewhere’ (Haraway 1991). The article shows how this perspective confronts deficit discourses, where young people in social programs are seen as either lacking resources and agency or whose resources and agency are going in the wrong direction, as well as those contemporary discourses that position and problematize the overall present youth generation as fragile, hypersensitive and disoriented.

Racialised identities of multilingual teachers: stories, experiences and agentic action of Indonesian teachers in Australian schools

ABSTRACT In a context of increasing deficit discourses about multiculturalism and multilingualism, this study examined the racialised identities of multilingual Indonesian teachers in secondary schools in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Informed by the Douglas Fir Group Framework (2016), the study unpacked teachers’ socio-cultural, and linguistic trajectories in schools to understand the ways in which they navigate, negotiate, and resist their racialised identities at micro, meso, and macro levels of activity. Through semi-structured interviews with six Indonesian teachers teaching Bahasa Indonesia in NSW schools, the study focused on three broad dimensions, namely: (i) teachers’ perceived racialised identities in connection with their students and colleagues in schools (micro); (ii) the perceived institutional practices that reproduce racialisation and marginalisation (meso); and (iii) the broader societal factors that contribute to ‘self’ and ‘other’ racialisation (macro). Thematic analysis of the interview data reveal that teachers identify systemic ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ that essentialise their racialised identities, Additionally, the racialisation of Indonesian language teachers in broader societal contexts is influenced by systemic factors, including language policies and institutional structures. Findings suggest that despite the pervasive forces which perpetuate monolithic thinking in schools, teachers engage in agentic action that seeks to resist and overcome their racialised identities.

Reciprocal mentorship and RECE journeys: An intergenerational dialogue

This essay brings together three intergenerational colleagues, two RECE founders, and a mid-career colleague, engaged in reciprocal mentorship, collaborative projects, and research focused on child care, critical policy studies, and global childhoods. We explore our encounters with RECE and how we have engaged with, been influenced by, and found various collaborative spaces through our reconceptualist/RECE experiences. In our dialogue, we discuss how we came to engage with reconceptualist scholarship and consider one of its tenets, reciprocal mentoring. We reflect on how the DAP debates have and still play a role in our scholarship, how naming and countering deficit discourse influence our work in early years policy, and the ways children’s voices, experiences, and participation rights need to be centered. We conclude by discussing current projects and future possibilities in our shared and individual work, exploring the implications for scholar activism and the future of reconceptualist work in early care and education.

(Re)countering multilingualism and refugee-background students in Australian compulsory education

Compared with nations around the world, Australia has one of the highest rates of refugee resettlement per capita. Approximately 40 per cent of newly arrived refugees in Australia in 2018–19 were under the age of 18 and close to 90 per cent spoke a language other than English. Given that education is compulsory until the age of 16 in most states and territories of Australia, young people labelled as refugee-background students (RBSs) are tasked with navigating the English-only education system, in which their multilingualism is often viewed as a barrier; however, there are increasing calls for research to focus on the positive, affirmative practices of RBSs through a strengths-based approach in education, to counter a ‘damage-centred’ and deficit discourse. Thus, this article presents a systematic literature review of studies conducted in Australia with RBSs between 2010 and 2022. Specifically, this review explores the strengths-based multilingual practices of RBSs in compulsory education in Australia. Inspired by RefugeeCrit theory, we seek to highlight strengths-based examples of RBSs multilingual practices as examples of counter-narratives to the prevailing deficit discourse, while remaining attentive to issues of trauma, agency and multilingualism.

Thinking About Rural Education and Binary Logic

Although definitions of rural vary across educational research projects and from country to country, an enduring theme has been the framing of rural as a disadvantage or problem that sits alongside a view of the urban as normative. In questioning the urban/rural binary and the deficit discourses that are associated with it, the authors present four short data excerpts and their thinking about how they represent rural education in their research. They conclude that the telling of positives stories about rural education is a move towards changing the discourses that circulate.

Conceptualizing political knowledges needed to teach inclusive mathematics: theorizing through counterstories

How do teachers develop and use political knowledge to create equitable and inclusive conditions for and with disabled students, particularly disabled students of color? In this essay, we build on concepts of political teacher knowledge in mathematics education, critical inclusive mathematics education and disability studies to explore teacher knowledges that support disabled students’ mathematical learning. We focus on four aspects of political knowledge for teaching mathematics: (1) knowledge as relational and unfolding over time, (2) understanding and negotiating the political contexts in which we teach mathematics, (3) deconstructing deficit discourses about marginalized students, and (4) learning to creatively resist the systems for and with our students. To develop our theoretical analysis, we use a counterstory of a middle school Latino student named Luis and his Latina mathematics teacher, Ms. Marquez. Our aim is to open up discussions in mathematics teacher educational research about the politics at play in teaching inclusive mathematics.

An Indigenous Strengths-based Theoretical Framework

ABSTRACT This article explores the inadequate recognition and integration of the strengths of Indigenous 1 people in direct practice, policy development, and research. To address this concern, I present an Indigenous strengths-based theoretical framework designed to recognise and illuminate the diverse strengths inherent in Indigenous people and communities. The ongoing structure of colonisation often presents challenges for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and others collaborating with Indigenous people to adopt a strengths-based approach. Unfortunately, well-intentioned collaborators, especially non-Indigenous allies, often succumb to deficit-based thinking and simplistic binary comparative analysis. This article draws inspiration from Dennis Saleebey's (2023) six-step, strengths-based approach, integrating it with a micro, meso, and macro framework and Indigenous Standpoint Theory. The result is an Indigenous strengths-based theoretical framework that embraces a strengths-based approach within the context of Indigenous cultures and world views. This framework fosters the identification and development of Indigenous strengths in a respectful and culturally safe manner. IMPLICATIONS A strengths-based approach must supersede the deficit discourse that continues to be a defining feature of how social workers, allied health professionals, researchers, and policymakers interact with Indigenous Australians. This article draws inspiration from Saleebey’s (2023. The strengths perspective in social work practice: Extensions and cautions. In Social work (pp. 230–235). Routledge) six-step approach to a strengths perspective, combined with a systems theory framework and an Indigenous standpoint, and can assist in (re)defining Indigenous strength-based practice.

Asset and deficit discourses of student ideas in science formative assessment co‐design

AbstractThe Framework for K‐12 Science Education set an ambitious goal of broadening participation in science learning for all students. Meeting this vision will involve supporting teachers in making meaningful connections with the cultural and linguistic resources their students bring to school; in essence, developing pedagogies that frame these resources as assets important to learning. In this manuscript, we present a qualitative case study of one community of high school science teachers who participated in a year‐long professional learning focused on formative assessment co‐design related to natural selection. Findings show that the process of formative assessment co‐design surfaced both deficit‐ and asset‐based statements about students' contributions. Teachers were more likely to share deficit‐based statements as compared to facilitators, whose statements were more asset‐based. This was particularly true with reference to students' prior knowledge and linguistic resources. At the same time, our analysis suggests that teachers were more likely to share more asset‐based framings of learners when practicing for and reflecting on enactment of formative assessment tasks. These findings suggest that supportive co‐design environments can encourage teachers to take more asset‐oriented views of learners. We discuss the implications of these findings for professional learning and science classroom practice.

Distributed liderazgo: the making of spaces and leadership structures for a multilingual school ecology

ABSTRACT This qualitative study conducted at a Midwestern U.S. elementary school with a ‘strand’ bilingual programme examines the ways that administrators, teachers, and parents create learning environments for emergent bilinguals (EBs) that promote a positive view of bilingualism. To frame the study, the author used distributed leadership to emphasise the multiple stakeholders and levels on which leadership is exercised. Liderazgo is used to emphasise the collective mission behind these leadership practices to create wider multilingual school ecology. Critically applying these perspectives to the data, the author developed the notion of ‘distributed liderazgo’ to identify actions taken and needed to contribute to the school's multilingual ecology. Promising instances include a shared mission focused on EBs, teacher collaboration reinforced by shared planning and opportunities for students to interact outside their programmes, and parent-led meetings. Additional steps could be taken to further the visibility of parent leadership and opportunities to support more languages at the school. The notion of distributed liderazgo is useful for practitioners and researchers to consider how leadership practices can contribute to a school's assets-based orientation to bilingualism. Work like this is important to contest monolingual orientations and deficit discourses about EBs that persist in otherwise English-dominant classrooms and schools.

Racially minoritised students’ strategies for navigating and resisting racism in higher education

ABSTRACT For years now racially minoritised people have entered UK Higher Education (HE) at higher rates than their white peers and, in recent years, recognition of race inequality in the sector has been growing. Despite this, institutional racism and whiteness continue to underpin UK HE. A growing body of work centres the experiences of racially minoritised students and considers how they experience racism and whiteness in HE. Less scholarly attention has been paid to how students respond to and resist racism and whiteness. As such, this article draws attention to racially minoritised students’ agency and the strategies they develop and deploy to navigate and resist racism in HE. In so doing, it challenges deficit discourses that suggest that racially minoritised students lack the capital required to survive in the academy. Second, through exploring students’ agency and resistance, it reveals the weight of institutional whiteness in HE.

Teacher positioning within the figured world(s) of urban school science

AbstractAlthough research has highlighted the challenges of teaching in urban settings, particularly for science teachers, it has paid less attention to the development of science teaching identities in urban settings. This paper situates science teaching identity within societal discourses of science, education, and teaching to explore the ways in which macro‐level discourses influence the positions available to science teachers in urban schools. Using questionnaire data from 64 teachers, discourse analysis is used to demonstrate how participants reinscribe or disrupt prominent macro‐level discourses, including the elitism of science, accountability, and deficit views of urban areas, and the resulting positions that are created by this negotiation process. The findings include possible positions relative to science, education, and teaching as well as a consideration of differences between elementary and secondary teachers and between beginning and experienced teachers. Although many participants successfully disrupted damaging discourses of science as elite and disconnected, as well as discourses of accountability and the role of standardized testing, they were not able to disrupt deficit discourses that resulted in positioning themselves as outside of their students' worlds, often as saviors. The findings demonstrated the strong influence of deficit discourses on teachers' descriptions of their experiences as science teachers and the need to support teachers in understanding the historical and cultural contexts of urban education to identify and disrupt deficit discourses and create teacher positions based on asset and justice‐based views of students, schools, and communities.

Supporting widening access, continuation and success: the positive impact of the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ)

The Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) is a Level 3, post-16 UK qualification that students usually take alongside A Levels, prior to entering university or the labour market. It plays an important role in improving access to, and success at university. The University of Southampton's Learn with US Transition Programme has developed support particularly for students undertaking the EPQ, who are underrepresented at university. This programme responds to the Office for Students′ (OfS) requirement to develop and submit an Access and Participation Plan (APP). The EPQ challenges the lack of aspiration and deficit discourses that are especially damaging to students from underrepresented backgrounds. Students who complete the EPQ are shown to perform better in terms of Key Stage 5 attainment and at degree level due to developing key academic and research skills prior to enrolment. The Learn with US team is exploring links between EPQ attainment and other institutional goals, such as addressing degree awarding gaps for under-represented students. The University of Southampton takes a whole-institution, lifecycle approach to removing barriers for underrepresented students, and the Learn with US Transition Programme is a key element of our provision that is proven to have positive outcomes for students transitioning into university, especially for those students who are already impacted by structural disadvantage.