What Is "Deficit-Based" Framing in Language & Education?

Описание: A crash course in language today, specifically how common it is to see deficit-based framing instead of asset-based framing or systems-based language.

I know for a fact that I’ve also used (and I’m sure likely still use unintentionally) deficit-based language when speaking, writing, and editing — it’s often subconscious when we slip into this type of thinking as it is the prevailing norm in current media. Remember, it’s absolutely okay to be learning this idea repeatedly, so long as you are aware of how it shows up for you.

These approaches perpetuate an image of those being helped as one-dimensional, ruined, and hopeless. It assumes that these people are somehow unable or uninterested to do anything to improve their situation and implicitly calls upon a theory of change that first requires proving harm — much like testifying in our court system.

In her open letter titled “Suspending Damage,” Professor Eve Tuck asks researchers to consider the long-term costs of, “thinking of ourselves as damaged.” She asks them to move towards a “desire-based framework.” That means understanding the complexity, contradiction, and self-determination of the communities that may have experienced great harm but are so much more than that. This means creating research trajectories that are critical of past realities, but are more centered on aspirations for the future.

I’ll let you think about how this applies to your own work, and make sure to come back next week for more learnings.