Data Use for Equity? How Data Practices Incite Deficit Thinking in Schools

• In Event: The Complexity of Data-Based Decision Making: Evidence From the United States, Norway, New Zealand, and Belgium

Abstract

Purpose and conceptual framework
The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how the organizational aspects of data use influence deficit thinking in schools. Our conceptual framework was informed by three bodies of literature: deficit thinking, sensemaking, and self-affirmation theory. Sensemaking allowed us to consider how schools, as organizations, influence teachers’ identification and interpretation of data. Self-affirmation theory helped us understand the actions teachers take as a result of the sensemaking process. Considered collectively, these theories allowed us to examine how schools enact data practices that influence teachers’ sensemaking in ways that incite deficit thinking.

Methods and data sources
A qualitative research approach was used to examine the organizational aspects of data use that influence deficit thinking in schools. Data were collected from schools across the state of Arkansas.
Participants included 52 educators (i.e., teachers, instructional facilitators, and leaders) from eight schools within seven Arkansas school districts. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and focus groups.

Results
Through our examination, we identified three broad ways in which schools enacted data practices that threatened teachers’ self-integrity and, subsequently, influenced their sensemaking in ways that pushed them toward deficit thinking. Schools pushed teachers to engage in deficit thinking when they: (1) shifted the focus from instruction to accountability measures; (2) when they prompted teachers to view students as numbers rather than people; and, (3) when they created an unsafe professional environment for teachers related to the use of data. These themes demonstrate how organizations framed data use and implemented specific data practices which prompted teachers to engage in deficit thinking. These themes contribute to our understanding of how deficit thinking is fueled by specific data practices established at the local level and can be used by school leaders to enact data practices which support the development of more equitable schools.

Significance
Our findings contribute to current disciplinary knowledge in two important ways. First, our findings suggest that teachers’ inclination to blame others for unsatisfactory data is not the direct result of high-stakes accountability systems, but instead, a reaction to local data practices that serve to threaten teachers’ self-integrity. Second, the findings from our study point to the need for a broader understanding of deficit thinking. These findings provide important insights into why data use in the United States has yet to fulfill its promise of more equitable learning outcomes for all students – and it may have more to do with organizational factors than previously realized. While deficit thinking is often associated with individual ideology, our findings suggest that deficit thinking might actually reflect complex, and often obscure, organizational aspects of data use in schools that can influence teachers and leaders’ priorities and professional sense of safety. Ultimately, these findings have important implications for school and district leaders as they work to develop equitable, socially just schools that reject deficit views of students and improve student outcomes.

Authors

• Kara Lasater, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

• Ed Bengtson, University of Arkansas

• Waheeb S Albiladi, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville