Participant as Researcher: (Re)positioning and Empowering Black Children as a Challenge to Deficit Educational Discourses

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: The Complexity and Multiple Spaces of Social Justice in Action

Abstract

The current dialogue surrounding Black youth traffics in deficit language that portrays these youth as “thugs” who come from “broken” families and “apathetic” communities. The purpose of this study was to utilize an anti-deficit perspective to capture the stories of how four urban Black children achieved positive academic outcomes. Through photovoice, my participants became co-researchers and documented their own stories. These stories, presented as a visual counternarrative, revealed that the children rely on themselves, families, schools, faith, and community in order to achieve success and challenge the dominant deficit discourses about them. Educational researchers need to (re)consider their approach to research in the Black community and place power back in the hands of those who own the story.

Author

• Ann M. Bennett, Kennesaw State University