Discourses of Deficit: A Study of Teachers’ Sense Making Regarding Student Literacy

• In Event: Teacher Preparation Before and During Full-Time Teaching: A Comparative Analysis of Learning to Teach

Abstract

Informed by the frameworks of New Literacy Studies (Gee, 1986; Lankshear & Knobel 2003; Street 1993), in this paper we explore how new teachers’ conceptualization of literacy and literacy achievement is socially situated. Drawing from the data collected in “A comparative study of learning to teach: Investigating the preparation of Teach for America teachers and pre-service teachers in Philadelphia,” we examine how new urban teachers describe their development specifically in terms of literacy instruction. There exists much in the literature problematitizing the deficit discourse around achievement and students’ abilities (Gadsden, Davis, & Artiles, 2009; Gutierrez, Morales, Martinez, 2009; Vasudevan, & Campano, 2009).

Our findings suggest that deficit language itself needs to be examined more closely in terms of how teachers may or may not discursively represent their students as a way to reflect on their own pedagogy, practice, and learning. Some teachers use this talk in relation to their own inexperience as educators (e.g: “There are so many kids at so many different levels… I’m not good at meeting them at where they’re at”). Other findings suggest that while some teachers interpret the deficits as coming from a lack of family support, other iterations seem to locate the shortcomings within the students themselves. By examining how these teachers both conceptualized and represented their understanding of literacy as well as in relation to their students’ development, greater insight will be gained regarding the ways in which teachers’ beliefs about themselves and their students and their own learning and development take shape.

Authors

• Jennifer G. Zwillenberg, University of Pennsylvania

• Melissa Hentges, University of Pennsylvania

• Danielle Gioia, University of Pennsylvania