Interrogating White Teacher/Researcher Deficit Perspectives of Latine Families: Insights From a Critical Discourse Analysis

• In Event: The (Anti)Racist Education of White Teachers and Students

Abstract

This paper aims to understand what aspects of a professional development (PD) workshop on family engagement surface and interrogate white teachers’ deficit perspectives of new immigrant Latine families, and what aspects reify deficit notions. With a Critical Race Theory lens, the authors use Critical Discourse Analysis to examine an hour-long discussion that vacillates between asset and deficit perspectives in an emergent third space. Analysis affords insights into the productivity of various discursive moves, the teachers’ and facilitator’s inclination to conjure a monolithic Latine family through Us/Them language, and an underlying assimilationist ideology that further distances teachers from families. We also reflect on a productive third space that emerges as teachers and the PD facilitator vacillate between asset and deficit language.

Authors

• Michelle N. Brown, The Pennsylvania State University

• Frances Nebus Bose, The Pennsylvania State University

• Carla Zembal-Saul, The Pennsylvania State University

• May H. Lee, The Pennsylvania State University

• Megan Elaine Lynch, University of North Florida

• Jennifer Lynn Cody, The Pennsylvania State University