Deficit Framing Research Articles

Working to Change the World: An Examination of One Child’s Social Activism

There is wide recognition that children’s lives are directly affected by inequitable practices in relation to aspects of identity such as gender, ethnicity, class, and citizenship. Yet, despite this acknowledgement, few scholars have explored how children are challenging inequities. This examination of the actions and stories of one-nine-year-old female addresses that silence. Data analysis illustrates the ways in which she was enacting social activist tenets. Also illuminated are the hurdles inherent to adult recognition of children’s activism. These findings underline the problematic role that deficit framings of children play in our understanding of their perspectives and capabilities.

A Dual Immersion Strand Programme in California: Carrying Out the Promise of Dual Language Education in an English-dominant Context

This paper uses ethnographic observation and in-depth interview to look at the ways in which an English-dominant school in California, USA inhibits the fulfilment of the goals of its dual immersion ‘strand’ programme. Taking a Bakhtinian perspective on discourses, and leaning on Bourdieu's concept of ‘linguistic capital’, the paper examines discourses around language, race and power, and discusses the implications of these discourses for the construction of a biliterate, bilingual, equitable academic programme for Latino language minority students in an American context. The dominance of English, the prevalence of mainstream dominant discourses of race and power, and the English-speaking staff's deficit framing of the Latino and African American communities at the school all manifest as obstacles to the dual language programme's ability to fulfill its mission. The paper raises questions about the subtle forms of ‘benevolent’ racism that can invade schools, undermining the ability of students of colour to construct positive identities as learners and find routes to school success.

Latina Mothers and Small‐Town Racisms:Creating Narratives of Dignity and Moral Education in North Carolina

Within the context of relatively new immigration and settlement in North Carolina, this ethnographic study highlights Latina mothers' narratives and conversations about a moral family education. Their narratives involved the claiming of el hogar (the home space) in the midst of the English‐speaking community's attempts to define their families and childrearing practices as “problem.” With a race‐based feminist perspective, this article examines the role of the mothers' counternarratives in contesting their deficit framing, producing “educated” identities, and creating community in the rural South.