Interrogating Deficit Thinking/Theorizing in Multiple Contexts

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The emphasis of this year’s conference is on creating space for analysis and discussion that will interrogate methods and theories that name injustice and that co-construct opportunities for just educational practices and systems.
Members and friends of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management have come together to interrogate the important concept of deficit thinking, sometimes referred to as deficit theorizing, in their respective contexts. In 1995, Wagstaff and Fusarelli found in their research that the single most important factor in the academic success of minoritized students was the administrator’s explicit rejection of deficit thinking. In 1997, Valencia conceptualized deficit thinking as a “form of oppression –that is the cruel and unjust use of authority and power to keep people in their place” (p. 3-4). Later, Shields, Bishop, and Mazawi acknowledged the deep colonial roots of deficit thinking and defined it, in part, as a way of pathologizing the lived experiences of others, and as:
a process where perceived structural, functional, cultural, or epistemological deviation from an assumed normal state is ascribed to another group as a product of power relationships, whereby the less powerful group is defined to be abnormal in some way. (2005, p, x)
Unfortunately, both blaming the victim and trying to “fix” the situation are dominant in all of our contexts.

Sub Unit

• International Aligned Organizations / Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management - CCEAM

Chair

• Carolyn M. Shields, Wayne State University

Papers

• A Retrospective Look at the Reframing of Deficit Thinking into Policy in Aotearoa New Zealand - Mere Berryman, University of Waikato

• Black Girls Unknown: Lessons Learned Through Creating Space for Free Subjectivities in an Urban Alternative School - Erica B. Edwards, Wayne State University

• Leadership for Equity in Schools: Australian Context - Suzanne B. Carrington, Queensland University of Technology

• Using Teacher Abroad Program to Identify and Debunk Deficit Thinking Among Future Educators - Patricia Briscoe, Niagara University - Ontario

• Leaders Excusing Deficit Thinking in the Guise of Social Justice - Carolyn M. Shields, Wayne State University