Denying Pathology While Implying Pathology? The Challenges and Limitations of Anti-Deficit Frameworks

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Collective Politics and Social Contexts of Education

Abstract

In this conceptual essay, we offer a critical assessment of the concept of deficits in education research and how scholars challenge or counter such deficits. Scholars often employ varying, sometimes contradictory conceptualizations of what deficit thinking is. We argue that this conceptual incoherence limits the potential of critical educational research and praxis. Secondly, we argue that in an effort to challenge pathological thinking surrounding youth and communities placed at the margins, scholars sometimes inadvertently pathologize other education stakeholders and even the very groups they intend to support from an asset-based approach. Lastly, we show how much work aimed at challenging deficits neglects to meaningfully engage with oppressive social structures, thereby offering a-sociological analyses.

Authors

• Antar A. Tichavakunda, University of Cincinnati

• Suneal Kolluri, San Diego State University