Countering Deficit Narratives About Black Students and School Attendance

• In Event: Promoting Safety and Resiliency in Schools

Abstract

Deficit narratives abound as policymakers and researchers theorize about differences in schooling outcomes between Black and white students. This essay reviews the prevailing conceptualizations of student absenteeism to explore whether and how they center racialized and deficit narratives to explain why students miss school and ignore the influence of systemic factors like school-discipline practices. Studying attendance rates in Georgia, we show that Black students attend school at comparatively higher rates than their peers after accounting for days missed because of suspensions and expulsions. We postulate that Black families’ historic and contemporary school involvement strategies contextualize Black students’ high discipline-adjust attendance rates, counter the deficit narratives about their parental involvement, and are likely obscured and undermined by schools’ discipline practices.

Authors

• Jerome Graham, Michigan State University

• Ain A. Grooms, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Joshua Childs, University of Texas at Austin