The Persistence of Graduate Education Majors' Deficit Perspectives After Explicit Exposure to Asset-Based Curriculum

• In Event: The Teacher as Student: Creating Social Justice Allies Through Teacher Education

Abstract

The purpose of this case study was to determine to what extent an asset-based social justice curriculum could facilitate a change in participants’ discourse about minority students and students living in poverty. Participants were selected based on their participation in an online graduate course in diversity in the college of education of a state university in the Southern United States. Participants wrote reflective responses about minority students and students living in poverty before, during, and after exposure to a curriculum that was explicit in its social justice and asset-based perspectives. Through the lens of critical discourse analysis, participants’ reflective writing provided three categories of interpretation, evidence of the persistence of deficit perspectives, and the power of anecdotal evidence.

Authors

• Natalie Elizabeth Keefer, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

• Michelle Georgette Haj-Broussard, University of Louisiana at Lafayette