Deconstructing Deficit Thinking in Educational Research on New Immigrant Women's Children in Taiwan

• In Event: 66.061 - Intersectional Examinations of Race, Class, and Gender Structured Poster Session

Abstract

This study examines deficit thinking embedded in the disciplinary knowledge in the field of education. Deficit thinking equals to a process of victim-blaming, a model based on imposition rather than verification. The critical education tradition is taken, a Foucauldian perspective adopted, and a discourse analysis performed. The researcher concentrates on those journal articles which target elementary school children of new immigrant women, including those that consider their academic achievement and social adjustment in school. The significance of this study lies in its attempt to deconstruct deficit thinking in educational research and reveal how the production of knowledge may perpetuate and strengthen existing unequal social relations.

Author

• Chiao-ling Yang, National Kaohsiung Normal University