International Deficit Thinking

Educational Thought and Practice

Richard R. Valencia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000754063
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

International Deficit Thinking: Educational Thought and Practice explores the incontrovertible reality of the persistent and pervasive academic achievement gap in many countries between marginalized students (primarily of color) and their economically advantaged White counterparts. For example, International Deficit Thinking discusses the cases of low-socioeconomic Black and Mexican American students in the United States, Indigenous M?ori students in New Zealand, and immigrant Moroccan and Turkish pupils in Belgium. The predominant theoretical perspective that has been advanced to explain the school failure of marginalized students is the deficit thinking paradigm—a parsimonious, endogenous, and pseudoscientific model that blames such students as the makers of their own school failure. Deficit thinking asserts that the low academic achievement of many marginalized students is due to their limited intellectual ability, poor academic achievement motivation, and being raised in dysfunctional families and cultures.

Drawing from, in part, critical race theory, systemic inequality analysis, and colonialism/postcolonialism, award-winning author and scholar Richard R.Valencia examines deficit thinking in education in 16 countries (e.g., Canada; Peru, Australia; England; India; South Africa). He seeks to (a) document and debunk deficit thinking as an interpretation for school failure of marginalized students; (b) offer scientifically defensible counternarratives for race-, class-, language-, and gender-based differences in academic achievement; (c) provide suggestions for workable and sustainable school reform for marginalized students.

1

THE CONSTRUCT OF DEFICIT THINKING

This introductory chapter dissects the construct of deficit thinking in the context of international educational thought and practice. In doing so, I frame this discussion around (a) the notion of school failure and the achievement gap, (b) theoretical perspectives proffered to explain such school failure, and (c) seven characteristics of deficit thinking.

School Failure and the Achievement Gap

Widespread and intractable school failure has been experienced, and continues to be the case, for millions and millions of students worldwide. Drawing from Valencia (2011), school failure is the persistently, pervasively, and disproportionately low academic achievement that primarily affects low-SES children and youth of color, immigrant, Indigenous, nomadic, special education, and English learner (EL) students.¹ A finer-grained analysis of school failure can be conducted by incorporating a quantifiable index, referred to as “the achievement gap” (hereafter referred to as TAG) (Valencia, 2015, chapter 1). This gap signals an incontrovertible reality in global education: A sizable achievement chasm exists between marginalized students (particularly in terms of race and class) and their advantaged White peers (data presented in later chapters of present volume). TAG is not confined to achievement test performance (e.g., reading), but it also manifests in other achievement indicators (e.g., grade retention; school holding power [dropouts]; matriculation to college; college graduation [baccalaureate and post baccalaureate]; Valencia, 2015, chapter 1). As a case in point, a substantial proportion of African American, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, other Latino/Latina, and American Indian elementary, middle, and high school students in the United States—compared to their White peers—face school failure, as evidenced, for example, by low levels of reading achievement and high rates of school dropouts (chapter 2, present volume).

In regard to the achievement chasm in other countries, TAG is clearly present in Canada, as evidenced in the finding that 29% of Aboriginal peoples have not finished high school—in comparison to 12% of non-Aboriginals (chapter 3, present volume). In Brazil, about 65% of economically disadvantaged school-age children and 14% of economically favored children completed 8 years of schooling (chapter 4, present volume). In a comparison of TAG for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Grade 9 students in the North Territory of Australia, the latter students outperformed the former pupils in reading, writing, and numeracy (chapter 5, present volume). Regarding Māori students (age 17.5 years) in New Zealand, 40% were enrolled in school—compared to 62% of the total group (chapter 6, current volume). In England, Black students at key testing periods (in primary, middle, and secondary school) performed substantially lower than their White counterparts in mathematics (chapter 7, present volume). TAG is also seen in Belgium, where Moroccan and Turkish students have been found to achieve considerably lower (e.g., primary grade completion) than their native Belgian peers (chapter 8, current volume). In India, lower-caste students, compared to upper-caste pupils, have higher dropout rates from secondary school (chapter 9, present volume). Finally, Black students of college age enrollment (20- to 24-year-old cohort) in South Africa are enrolled in universities in much smaller proportions (12%) compared to their White peers (54%) (chapter 10, present volume).

How does one best explain the incontestable international fact that a persistent and pervasive academic gulf exists in countries that have been colonized or have marginalized immigrant groups? What theoretical models have been advanced to best account for the academic achievement disparities between students—who have been marginalized by racial, class, language, and gender bias—and their economically advantaged White student counterparts?

Theoretical Perspectives Advanced to Explain School Failure and TAG

In my view, there are at least four competing models to explicate school failure: (a) cultural-ecological, (b) communication process, (c) systemic inequality, and (d) deficit thinking. Elsewhere, I have explicated these theories (Valencia, 2015, chapter 2). As such, here I will touch upon the first three, and expound on deficit thinking—given its centrality in the present volume.

Cultural-Ecological Model

The late educational anthropologist, John U. Ogbu, is credited for developing the cultural-ecological model (CEM). In his many writings, Ogbu advances a typology of “minorities” in the United States, to wit: (a) “autonomous” (e.g., Mormons; Jews); (b) “immigrant” (Chinese; Punjabi); (c) “involuntary” or “castelike” (e.g., African American; Mexican American; Puerto Rican; American Indian) (Ogbu, 1978, 1990, 1991, 2003; Ogbu & Simons, 1998). He maintains that autonomous and immigrant group members have a high value for education and do undergo the experiences of assimilation and acculturation. These students do have adjustment problems, but they do not experience protracted adaptation issues. By contrast, castelike minorities—who came unwillingly to the United States (e.g., Blacks via slavery; Kolchi, 2003)—or were colonized (e.g., Mexican Americans; Acuña, 2007), or were conquered (e.g., American Indians; Stannard, 1992) experience chronic problems in adjustment and academic achievement. In his CEM, Ogbu (2008a) argues that castelike minority students, particularly Blacks, develop a dysfunctional oppositional identity and culture toward achievement motivation. In a seminal 1-year ethnography in a 99% Black high school in Washington, D.C., Fordham and Ogbu (1986) reported that Black students expressed a number of attitudes and behaviors that characterize “acting White,” which are unacceptable (e.g., “working hard to get good grades,” “speaking standard English”) (p.186). As such, Black students develop an anti-achievement ideology, according to Fordham and Ogbu.

Notwithstanding Ogbu's important scholarship on the systemic discrimination and academic disengagement experienced by students of color in the United States (with an emphasis on Black students), a substantial corpus of publications exists that provides critiques of Ogbu's CEM. Based on a content analysis I have conducted of this body of literature, I have placed the publications in six categories of criticism that make most sense to me: (a) ahistorical; (b) sampling problems; (c) deterministic; (d) deficit thinking; (e) ignores student heterogeneity; (f) counterevidence of oppositional culture (Valencia, 2015, p. 48, Table 2.1).² It is this last category that contains, by far, the most critiques, numbering over two dozen publications.³

Communication Process Model

The earliest variant of this model to explain school failure and TAG stems from the intense debate of the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States and England (see Williams, 1970) in which some scholars (mostly psychologists) asserted that children living in poverty had language that was “deficient” due to accumulated environmental deficits⁴ (e.g., Blank, 1970; Engelmann, 1970). On the other hand, there were scholars (mostly linguists) who posited that poor children (primarily of color) had language that was merely “different” (e.g., Baratz, 1970; Baratz & Baratz, 1970; Labov, 1970). Blank, a deficit thinker, maintained that children of poverty, compared to their White middle-class peers, had developed inadequate languages structures and possessed restrictive linguistic codes,⁵ and thus needed “language-based tutorial programs” (Blank, 1970; pp. 73–76). By noticeable contrast, some scholars, for example Baratz (1970), argued that the research by psychologists was quite naive regarding the conclusions about poor children's language (e.g., the assertions that a child's linguistic system could not be fully developed and that it was not rule governed). Although the “deficient” perspective regarding language has been debunked (e.g., Cazden, 1970; Dudley-Marling & Lucas, 2009; Labov, 1970), on occasion one can see it surface in contemporary literature (e.g., Hart & Risley, 1995).⁶

As the communication process model evolved, it started to move away from the binary deficient/different debate to a discourse that began to underscore that linguistic differences, verbal and nonverbal communication styles, teacher-s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Introduction
• 1 The Construct of Deficit Thinking
• PART I The Americas
• 2 The United States of America
• 3 Canada
• 4 Latin America (Brazil; Costa Rica; Mexico; Peru)
• PART II South Pacific
• 5 Australia
• 6 New Zealand (Fiji)
• PART III Europe
• 7 England
• 8 Other European Countries (Ireland; Belgium)
• PART IV Asia
• 9 Asia (India; China)
• PART V Africa
• 10 Africa (South Africa; Nigeria)
• Final Thoughts
• Index