Children resisting deficit: What can children tell us about literate lives?

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Author(s)
Baroutsis, A
Woods, A
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2018
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Research has demonstrated that teachers who know more about the literate lives of their students outside of the classroom are more able to set up positive connections between home and school. In this article, we theorise the notion of ‘deficit’ discourses in education. Using two cases as examples, we seek to disrupt deficit discourses about children in communities of high poverty. The first case describes children’s responses when asked to draw and talk about learning to write, and highlights children’s explication of the role of the family in literacy learning. The second case describes an outside school media space where ...
View more >Research has demonstrated that teachers who know more about the literate lives of their students outside of the classroom are more able to set up positive connections between home and school. In this article, we theorise the notion of ‘deficit’ discourses in education. Using two cases as examples, we seek to disrupt deficit discourses about children in communities of high poverty. The first case describes children’s responses when asked to draw and talk about learning to write, and highlights children’s explication of the role of the family in literacy learning. The second case describes an outside school media space where children engaged over time with a variety of new media and digital texts. These examples make the point that listening to young people can provide surprising insights into children’s aspirations and their understandings of the affordances of learning literacy. Our findings challenge the assumptions that underpin deficit understandings of children and young people growing up in communities of high poverty, and suggest that listening to children and young people in schools may well support the goal of providing quality schooling for all students.
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View more >Research has demonstrated that teachers who know more about the literate lives of their students outside of the classroom are more able to set up positive connections between home and school. In this article, we theorise the notion of ‘deficit’ discourses in education. Using two cases as examples, we seek to disrupt deficit discourses about children in communities of high poverty. The first case describes children’s responses when asked to draw and talk about learning to write, and highlights children’s explication of the role of the family in literacy learning. The second case describes an outside school media space where children engaged over time with a variety of new media and digital texts. These examples make the point that listening to young people can provide surprising insights into children’s aspirations and their understandings of the affordances of learning literacy. Our findings challenge the assumptions that underpin deficit understandings of children and young people growing up in communities of high poverty, and suggest that listening to children and young people in schools may well support the goal of providing quality schooling for all students.
View less >
Journal Title
Global Studies of Childhood
Volume
8
Issue
4
Funder(s)
ARC
Grant identifier(s)
LP0990289
DP150101240
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2018. Global Studies of Childhood (GSC), Volume 8 Issue 4, Pages 325-338, 2018. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. Article reuse guidelines at sagepub.com/journals-permissions
Subject
Education systems
Specialist studies in education
Cultural studies
Deficit discourses of children
Literacy
Poverty
Student voice