Deficit Discourses Research Articles

Disrupting Perception: Mapping An Understanding Of Educational Attainment

Educational attainment is widely recognised as a ‘wicked’ problem in Australia for which a range of interventions have been developed. The North West of Tasmania is a rural and regional community, which has been a focus for such interventions due to its relatively low rates of retention to Year 12 and low tertiary participation rates. This paper seeks to move beyond narratives of deficit through a project aimed at exploring and representing the scope and range of activities undertaken in the region to address and support educational attainment. We begin with the question: ‘How can communities, perceived to be deficit models, be provided with evidence of activities aimed at impacting educational attainment in a meaningful way?’ We used concept mapping to re-present the variety, type and audience of activities in the region. Concept mapping provided a means of processing a dynamic assemblage of data to represent existing work and to explore possibilities. This process disrupts deficit discourses and enhances stakeholders’ knowledge of educational attainment in the region and invites future mapping and more complex understandings of ongoing cultural change.

Deficit discourses of Indigenous high school students in physical education and school sport and the benefit of a strengths based alternative

Deficit discourses of Indigenous high school students in physical education and school sport and the benefit of a strengths based alternative

Scaffolds

Scaffolds

Perspectives on Language Sustainability in a Performance Era: Discourses, Policies, and Practices in a Digital and Social Media Campaign to Revitalise Irish

AbstractThe poststructuralist turn has been widely acknowledged in contemporary applied and sociolinguistics (Rampton 2006, Blommaert 2010). While for many this paradigmatic shift has been a welcome challenge to segregationalist approaches (Mühlhäusler 1996, Makoni and Pennycook 2007) and deficit discourses in relation to multilingualism (Jacquemet 2005, Jaffe 2007), it is not an unproblematic concept for minority language media and language sustainability. For those committed to activism and engagement with policy makers, the current paradigmatic shift, which has been described in terms of a performance era for minority language media (Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes 2011), presents particular challenges which have the potential to undermine gains made in previous eras in relation to media rights for minority language speakers. Using the example of a recent multi-media campaign to revitalise Irish, the Bród Club, this paper explores the opportunities and problems presented by the contemporary performance era for minority language media.

Building a sense of community belonging: Making mobile families welcome in a rural Australian school

Seasonal farm workers play an important economic role through their contributions to annual harvests and the fact that they spend income in the community where they sojourn. However, research shows that farm workers and other temporary residents are often socially marginalised in rural communities and feel as though they are outsiders who do not belong. This paper reports research that focused on a primary school in a rural community in Australia, where seasonal mobile farm workers arrived for the annual harvest. Using a single case study design, the research demonstrated that the school made a deliberate attempt to welcome newly-arrived students and their families into the school community. Using a whole school strategy, the school staff aimed to meet families’ and students’ social needs, thereby building a sound foundation for the academic work of schooling. However, the data and data analysis also suggested that the school’s strategy was helping to work against the deficit discourses that operated in the broader community, thus demonstrating the school’s role as a hub for the community’s socio-educational development.

Indigenous Education and Literacy Policy in Australia: Bringing Learning Back to the Debate

In a policy landscape dominated by forces that seek to continually reshape education according to market logics, there are particular impacts on the seemingly intractable crisis of Indigenous education policy making. Entrenched discourses of deficit result in education policy continually being ‘done to’ communities, with little heed paid to the effects of such efforts on the learning opportunities available to young Indigenous learners, particularly those living in remote communities. This paper examines the contemporary network of policy levers that come to shape how literacy policy is framed for Indigenous Australians through narratives of failure and crisis. In doing so, we ask what learning is made (im)possible and what are some of the ‘flattening’ effects on literacy curriculum and pedagogy as a result? Further, this paper seeks to open up the conversation around what learning is possible when the policy landscape is unflattened, when policy is ‘done with’ communities, and when pedagogical practices are opened up, rather than closed down.

Hard to teach: inclusive pedagogy in social science research methods education

ABSTRACTAmidst major new initiatives in research that are beginning to address the pedagogic dimension of building capacity in social science research methods, this paper makes the first move to apply the lens of inclusive pedagogy to research methods pedagogy. The paper explores the ways in which learning social science research methods is hard and may be anxiety-provoking, which has sometimes led to a deficit discourse in which learners are positioned as ill-prepared and fearful. Learners can then be blamed for being hard to teach when an inclusive pedagogical lens would support a more asset-based discourse. Nonetheless, the authors argue that without traditional deficit-based solutions of the remedial class, special needs label or special teacher within the methods learning environment, methods teachers have developed their own responses. These pedagogic responses, elicited from the authors’ research using methods of expert interviews, focus groups and video-stimulated dialogue, address challenges associated with the learner, the learning material and the teacher’s context. The paper differentiates between practical solution-focused strategies and more holistic approaches. The authors illustrate how methods teachers reach out to diverse learners and they conclude that data and standpoints are used in inclusive teaching to make connections and to support learning.

Thrown Together: Incorporating Place and Sustainability into Early Literacy Education

The development of language and literacy abilities of young multilingual children is important to their future educational engagement and success in school. In this study, the value of taking account of place and sustainability in early literacy education is considered. This research provides ideas for practice-based research on early literacy in multilingual and community-based contexts. In a case study with a Grade 1 classroom in Sweden, the researcher and the teacher implemented various literacy activities to bring children’s own powerful knowledge about place into the classroom. This enabled young children to actively engage with language and literacy in authentic and meaningful ways. Early childhood teachers need to be aware of the importance of incorporating ideas about place and sustainability into early literacy education in order to avoid deficit discourses and instead build participatory practices and support democratic values. Bringing literacy and place together in education can address what is perhaps one of the most crucial questions of sustainability, namely how people within a community can live together while having different values, beliefs and dreams.

Reclaiming Coady: Adult Education and Economic Development in Atlantic Canada

This paper seeks to challenge the rhetoric of deficit that surrounds Atlantic Canada by employing an appreciative approach and discussing one key Atlantic Canadian, Rev. Moses M. Coady, adult educator and the founder of the Antigonish Movement. Coady’s work was grounded in the Atlantic region, and his message of cooperation, community, and consciousness‑raising pioneered the field of emancipatory education so often associated with the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. As Atlantic Canadians, we wish to reclaim Coady’s work and celebrate his contribution to the culture and development of our region. This paper begins with an overview of the deficit discourse that permeates Atlantic Canada. The paper describes the life and work of Moses Coady and provides a brief biography of the life and work of Paolo Freire, both of whom approached their work from an appreciative perspective, to lay the foundation for our argument as to why the work of Moses Coady needs to be reclaimed in the teaching and practice of adult education in Atlantic Canada.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: A means of exploring aspiration and resilience amongst Widening Participation students

As the Office for Fair Access and the Higher Education Funding Council for England priorities now extend across widened access to success, both the aspirations of young people from widening participation (WP) backgrounds and their existing or developing resilience as students are of concern to Higher Education institutions. In this paper, these positive psychology concepts of aspiration and resilience are used in two different studies each seeking to move away from the prevalent discourse of deficit. This paper thus offers the joint perspective of two researchers exploring the phenomena of a) aspiration in students from low participation neighbourhoods and b) resilience in students from low-income backgrounds. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is utilised by both to offer a credible, insightful research approach which may enable educators, researchers and policy-makers to appreciate the nature and significance of WP students? experiences in a previously unseen way, thus enabling effective interventions and methods of support. Through in-depth exploration of the cognitions and emotions of young people from WP backgrounds, the researchers discuss how listening to individual stories can provide rich data that may enhance future support for students. Important methodological challenges and the implications of applying IPA to both studies are debated; including use of language to convey meaning, the role of researcher reflexivity and the difficulties in achieving a truly interpretative account of the phenomenon. Whilst often a challenging methodology, IPA can provide rich, contextualised accounts which contribute to the limited extant qualitative literature on WP student aspiration and resilience.

文化的・政治的実践の媒介としての教師のまなざし : 「欠損言説」および「個体能力観」との向かい合いのなかで

文化的・政治的実践の媒介としての教師のまなざし : 「欠損言説」および「個体能力観」との向かい合いのなかで

“Lo hacen tan complicado”: Bridging the perspectives and expectations of mathematics instruction of Latino immigrant parents

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to counter widespread deficit discourses about Latino parental involvement in their children’s education. In particular, we show Latino immigrant parents’ views and understandings of curricular and pedagogical practices in elementary school, especially in mathematics. Using data from the Agency and Young Children project, a video-cued ethnographic study, we highlight voices of Latino immigrant parents that describe their understanding of, and attention to, differences in mathematics instruction between theirs and the American culture. Our work suggests the need to create a bridge for communication between home and school to better prepare bilingual students to face the educational challenges they experience, particularly during mathematics instruction.

A Level Playing Field: Conceptualizing an Empowering Research Framework for Criminologists Who Engage with Marginalized Communities

Some criminologists use empowering research approaches but fail to deliver on their promise to empower marginalized populations. This article explores the origins of such failures, identifies deficit perspectives as the main culprit, and explains how deficit narratives in participatory research advance marginalization processes. Distinguishing key channels of power in research—power of knowledge, power to self-direct, and power of socio-political influence—reveals that (contrary to deficit discourses) marginalized social groups are not powerless, criminologists wield less socio-political influence than frequently suggested, and power in research relationships distributes inconsistently, incongruently, and heterogeneously. To counteract deficit thinking, empowerment is defined from a counter-imperialist perspective. Given that the opposite of imperialism is self-determination and that the concept of empowerment origins in self-determination theory, the latter is used to conceptualize an empowering research framework, which is designed to enhance knowledge of all research parties and meet their need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Speaking back to the deficit discourses: a theoretical and methodological approach

The educational attainment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students is often presented within a deficit view. The need for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers to challenge the societal norms is necessary to contribute to the struggle for self-determination. This paper presents a theoretical and methodological approach that has enabled one researcher to speak back to the deficit discourses. Exemplification of how Indigenous Critical Discourse Analysis (in: Hogarth, Addressing the rights of Indigenous peoples’ in education: A critical analysis of Indigenous education policy, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, 2016) identifies the power of language to maintain the inequitable positioning of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within Australian society is provided. Particular focus is placed on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan 2010–2014 (in: MCEECDYA, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan (2010–2014), 2011) and how policy discourses ignore the historical, political, cultural and social factors that influence the engagement and participation of Indigenous peoples in education today. The paper argues for the need to personalise methodological approaches to present the standpoint of the researcher and, in turn, deepens their advocacy for addressing the phenomenon. In turn, the paper presents the need to build on existing Indigenous research frameworks to continue advocating for the position of Indigenous research methodologies within the Western institution.

Indigenous Parents Navigating School Choice in Constrained Landscapes

ABSTRACTEducational reform policies in the United States promote school choice as a central tool to empower low-income and minoritized families in order to close the achievement gap. However, research on school choice rarely reflects the voice of minoritized families and offers little evidence that choice significantly addresses inequities in educational outcomes. This article analyzes the perspectives of Indigenous parents as they navigate school choice options with their children in the southwestern U.S. Through the conceptual lens of enduring struggle and educational survivance, ethnographic data offers insight into factors significant for three families as they select schools from a highly constrained landscape. Deeper analysis of why Indigenous families reject and select schools reveals an educational landscape fraught with persisting inequities, in spite of choice. The continued silencing of issues relevant to Indigenous education, such as the impacts of colonization, tribal sovereignty, and rights to culturally responsive education marginalize Indigenous voices from the school choice debate. This study adds Indigenous voices to the school choice debate, and contributes new dimensions to parent choice behaviors. Implications support scholarly claims that current school choice policy masks the entrenched operations of race, class and deficit discourse which perpetuate unfavorable school outcomes for Indigenous youth.

Asset-based youth support—reclaiming the roots of youth work at the Foyer Federation

Evolutionary systems theory is widely accepted as the organising principle for life sciences. In more recent years it has also been applied to economics, culture, language, and leadership. In this paper we argue that services for young people need to evolve from deficit discourses to asset-based practices. The argument for asset-based work with young people will be presented through the lens of one organisation, the Foyer Federation who were developing asset-based service design. The findings of a systematic literature review are presented to demonstrate the scope and impact of current asset-based initiatives globally. The assumptions and activities of deficit and asset-based approaches are contrasted with use of cultural-historical activity theory. These findings are synthesised with the developmental work of the Foyer Federation to explicate the philosophy and practice of asset-based work with young people. The findings and implications are drawn out to inform others practice and research.

An imagined 'haven' for refugee Muslim families: slowly remaking the school

This paper explores how one Catholic school in Australia set out to reculture its practices with the goal of increasing the social and academic capabilities of their refugee students. It draws on Appadurai's (1996) meditation on social imagination to show that educational innovation requires new ways of thinking and doing, both in and beyond the school. Rather, the work of imagination is what enables the remaking of the ethos and practices of a school. Drawing on qualitative data produced through a rapid ethnography approach, our analysis shows how the gradual negotiation of whole-school sustained innovation can begin to produce a space of haven for Muslim refugee families. The study found that it takes time and perseverance to contest the deficit discourses that surround refugee students and their families. The school community has to work across many sites of practice to become a hopeful and enabling space.

An imagined 'haven' for refugee Muslim families: slowly remaking the school

This paper explores how one Catholic school in Australia set out to reculture its practices with the goal of increasing the social and academic capabilities of their refugee students. It draws on Appadurai's (1996) meditation on social imagination to show that educational innovation requires new ways of thinking and doing, both in and beyond the school. Rather, the work of imagination is what enables the remaking of the ethos and practices of a school. Drawing on qualitative data produced through a rapid ethnography approach, our analysis shows how the gradual negotiation of whole-school sustained innovation can begin to produce a space of haven for Muslim refugee families. The study found that it takes time and perseverance to contest the deficit discourses that surround refugee students and their families. The school community has to work across many sites of practice to become a hopeful and enabling space.

Differences between children and young people: A multiple case study from Denmark

The words ‘children’ (Danish: ’børn’) and ‘young people’ (Danish: ’unge’) are so often combined that they almost have the character of idiomatic expressions. But what differences in the use of the words can be found? This article seeks to study the prevalent, dominant discourses about children and young people. In particular, it endeavours to answer the following question: What is thematized, and how are the thematizations created and maintained? The study is theoretically inspired by Foucault’s discourse analysis. The methodological approach is that of a multiple case study. Thus, it provides examples of how children are typically referred to in positive terms such as innocent, imaginative, cheerful, spontaneous, creative and competent (a surplus discourse), while young people are typically referred to in negative terms such as irresponsible, rootless, violent, dysfunctional, hedonistic and unaccountable (a deficit discourse).

Standpoint Theory in Professional Development: Examining Former Refugee Education in Canada

On September 2, 2015, a toddler was photographed on an unnamed Turkish beach in a position reminiscent of a baby sleeping in his crib. Alan Kurdi would instantly become the poster child for an entire nation that had no other alternative but to run and risk their lives on inflatable dinghies. On the open expanse of the Mediterranean Sea, the rate of survival was much higher than staying in Syria. On December 11, 2015, the newly elected Canadian Liberal majority government opened up Canada’s borders to Syrian refugees, and the Canadian education system is now grappling with how to adequately address the needs of their former refugee students. This article examines how deficit discourse affects academic excellence of all English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners, including former refugee students, and how professional development offers a cost-effective solution to the effects of deficit discourse on former refugee students, while equipping teachers with reliable skills and tools to use in diverse classrooms. In addition, this article investigates how standpoint theory can be used as the foundation for professional development programming for teachers of all students, including those who were refugees. Keywords: education; deficit discourse; standpoint theory; refugee