Getting Out of Deficit: Pedagogies of reconnection

TLDR

Children growing up in poverty consistently score lower on literacy tests, and although many remedial programmes exist, reforms are often limited by deficit views of families and children. The study investigates how teacher researchers can address unequal literacy outcomes by centering teachers in examining the issue. The authors employ a reciprocal research design in which two early‑career teachers critically examine and move beyond deficit narratives concerning two students. The authors conclude that dismantling deficit discourses and redesigning pedagogy to reconnect with children’s lifeworlds requires long‑term reciprocal research partnerships with teachers.

Abstract

The fact that children growing up in poverty are likely to be in the lower ranges of achievement on standardised literacy tests is not a new phenomenon. Internationally there are a myriad of intervention and remedial programmes designed to address this problem with a range of effects. Frequently, sustainable reforms are curtailed by deficit views of families and children growing up in poverty. This article describes an ongoing research study entitled "Teachers Investigate Unequal Literacy Outcomes: Cross‐Generational Perspectives", which made teacher researchers central in examining this long‐standing dilemma. It outlines the research design and rationale, and analyses how two early career teachers worked their ways out of deficit analyses of two children they were most worried about. It argues that disrupting deficit discourses and re‐designing new pedagogical repertoires to reconnect with children's lifeworlds is a long‐term project that can best be achieved in reciprocal research relationships with teachers.