Cultural Deprivation
• Defined: A lack of those particular kinds of
learning that are important for success in school
– Lower-class children as deprived of this culture
– Reference point: American schools
• “There are no schools in our society in which the knowledge
and skills particular to lower-class groups are valued and
fostered”
• Monolithic Lower-Class Culture that is deprived of education
and “proper” linguistic skills that reflect critical thinking and
intelligence.
– Sources of deprivation: home life, parenting and the
reproduction of deprivation, values [BLAMING THE VICTIM]
Sensory Deprivation vs. Cultural
Deprivation
• Sensory Deprivation: depriving an individual of the
sensory stimulation necessary for proper neural
maturation
– Sensory stimulation: visual stimulation, and touch impacts
development such as learning to sit, stand, walk, and speak
– Inference: Intellectual development is linked to varied sensory
experiences.
• May remedy achievement gap between classes by providing such
experiences
• Critique: Implies an educational quality to stimuli.
However, it is not how educational the stimuli is, but the
variety, intensity, and patterning of the stimuli
– none of which requires the use of expensive toys or middle or
upper class settings.
Verbal vs. Non-verbal Factors in
Cultural Deprivation
• Concrete, Exploratory learning vs. verbal
learning
– Lack of concrete learning has little to do with
intellectual and academic deficiencies
– Lack of verbal learning as responsible for deficiencies
• Source of verbal deficiencies= the family
– language use is passed on to small children from family
members
– implies that lower-class adults do not know how to speak or
teach the “proper” use of English
• Conclusion: Cultural deprivation synonymous
with language deprivation
Language “Deficiencies” of LowerClass Children
• Failure to master certain uses of language
– ASSUMPTIONS
• Language as not of vital importance to lower-class families (survival
doesn’t depend on cognitive language use)
– Cognitive uses of language as limited in lower class homes in favor of
language to used to control behavior, to express emotions, and to
share experiences
– Lacks explanation, description, inquiry, analysis, comparison,
reasoning, and deduction
• Cognitive language use as primarily important for the “transmission
of knowledge”
• Conclusion: Lower-class children as deprived of culture
that can only be learned if taught. Actually deprived of
the tools necessary to learn. Those tools are cognitive
language.
Language Development of LowerClass Children
• Sentences as “giant words”
– There is a general understanding of the meaning of sentences
but not if they are broken down into distinct words.
– EX: “He bih daw.” vs. “He’s a big dog.”
– Conclusion: amalgamation of noises vs. breaking sentences into
parts/words. This eventually impacts the capacity to master
grammar.
• Sounds similar to language use among all children.
However, privileged children use fully formed words
within sentences rather than noises.
– Privileged children use a modified grammar as they omit words
they do not understand.
Social and Emotional Problems
• Disadvantaged children are socially and emotionally
deprived
– Results in personality problems
• Critique: No evidence to support claim
1. If cases of personality disturbance among poor children are more
common, it is still unfair and impractical to categorize the
majority as such.
2. Older children frequently show the damaging affects of school
failure on personality development. The remedy is unclear
except to foster self-confidence.
3. Emotional disturbances can be produced by misguided
management practices (holding children too much)
4. Inappropriate socialization by the parents can be remedied
through socializing children in class. “Teaching naive children to
act in a new situation.”
Using the Critique
Critique of Social/Emotional Problems
1.
If cases of personality disturbance among
poor children are more common, it is still
unfair and impractical to categorize the
majority as such.
Critique of Cultural Deprivation
1. Using a monolithic construction of lowerclass culture that blames the family is
problematic
2.
Older children frequently show the
damaging affects of school failure on
personality development. The remedy is
unclear except to foster self-confidence.
2. School failure as the source of the problem
not the result of the problem. Even if the
source of the problem is the family (which it
isn’t) this begs the question as to why the
school system failed the children’s parents?
The source is the system itself.
3.
Emotional disturbances can be produced
by misguided management practices
(holding children too much)
3. Achievement gaps can be produced by
misguided teaching and schooling practices.
For example, teachers and counselors may
project stereotypes onto the children thus
supporting the reproduction of inequalities
4.
Inappropriate socialization by the parents
can be remedied through socializing
children in class. “Teaching naive children
to act in a new situation.” Not
psychotherapy
4. Why is socialization and teaching cognitive
language use any different? Both refer to
teaching children new functions of old
patterns supposedly passed down through
the family.
Subtractive Schooling- ANA MARIA
• Liked education in Mexico
• Read complex texts there/ does not read complex texts in her US
school
• Teachers in Mexico focused on critical thinking and ownership of
texts
– Ex: they used Don Quixote to emphasize the importance of dreams and
imagination which culminated in writing assignments and poem
composition
• Sites teacher interest in her life as very high.
– Teachers in Mexico visit her home twice a year and one encouraged her
to seek out social work as a career.
• Desires to be “somebody” in the U.S. and then return to do social
work in Mexico
• Defends teachers in the U.S. as having to work in a corrupt system
– Large class size
Subtractive Schooling- LINDA
•
•
•
•
•
•
Liked education in Mexico
Read complex texts there/ does not read complex texts in her US school
Teacher in Mexico helped forge her love of learning
Poor conditions of the schools in Mexico yet attendance was high- desire to
learn was high
Sites Mexican identity and cultural practices as valuable and effective in the
learning process
Linda believes that hard work is rewarded by teachers but that teachers
should love all of their students.
– It is the teachers job to inspire hard work
•
Lack of teachers’ attention in U.S. schools
– lack of caring on the teachers’ parts
– Verbally abusive and culturally insensitive ESL teacher
•
Cousins failed in US elementary schools
Subtractive Schooling- FITO
• Positive school experiences in Mexico
• Male teachers helped serve as father figures
including spankings for poor behavior
– Even though teachers were also literally an extension
of his family, he claims that this type of “parenting” by
teachers in a small town is widely practiced
– These teachers inspired him to work hard
• Good communication between his father and his
other family members even though his father
lived in the US while he lived in Mexico (system
of accountability)
Subtractive Schooling- Lazaro
• Reflects on his mastery of math in Mexico
vs. his struggles with the subject in the
U.S
– cites his capacity to tackle more complex
math problems in Mexico vs. U.S.
– Is he dumb in the U.S.? Are his teachers bad
in the U.S.?
• Believes that hard work results in teachers’
affection “If you work hard they’ll like you”
What can we learn from these
narratives?
• Students are very much aware of the politics of
schooling
• There is a difference in academic performance and
teacher support between their schools in Mexico and
their schools in the U.S. Why? What is the impact?
• They site better resources in U.S. schools but better
educational experiences in Mexico. Why?
• Their schools in Mexico fostered critical thinking and
analysis of complex literature.
– Would these students be classified in the U.S as culturally
deprived/linguistically deprived? If so, what is cultural
deprivation?