"Nobody Ever Says That": A Case Study Countering Deficit-Framing of Black Students by Centering their Community Cultural Wealth

Abstract

Historically, Black students have been positioned using a deficit perspective (Valencia, 1997; 2010), resulting in students’ classroom and schooling experiences being less than favorable. For example, Black students have experienced a disproportionate number of suspensions and unequal discipline measures (Howard & Rodriguez-Minkoff, 2017; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2009; U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2014). At the same time, Black students are often faced with psychological distress and frustration when students feel like the schools they attend devalue and disrespect them (Choi et al., 2006; Cholewa et al., 2014). As a way to counter deficit framing of Black students, my dissertation identifies young, Black students’ assets and Community Cultural Wealth (CCW; Yosso, 2005) and examines whether and how young, Black students’ CCW is embedded in their classroom learning. I use an embedded, single case study design to share examples of six, Black second grade students’ CCW and question whether and how their CCW is embedded in their second grade classroom. Using one-on-one interviews, photovoice methods (photography), and field note observations, I use inductive and deductive coding around Yosso’s six forms of capital in her CCW model (aspirational capital, familial capital, linguistic capital, navigational capital, resistant capital, social capital) to analyze what students’ home and classroom experiences entail. My findings show that students’ families play a significant role in their lives, including inspiring their career aspirations, informing students’ sensemaking around inequalities, and developing students’ skills, such as perseverance and the ability to understand race issues so that they can navigate racist and oppressive institutions. Compared to students’ lived experiences with their families, the focal students’ classroom experiences highlight positive stories of Black people in pop culture and history during segmented times of the day and leave little room for students to draw on their CCW or provide opportunities for students to connect their CCW to subject-area learning. In addition, teacher-facilitated classroom conversations around racism—an inescapable lived experience Black children encounter —were limited and created missed opportunities to ask critical questions which could help develop students’ sociopolitical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 1995a; 1995b). Implications from my study add to the body of literature on young, Black students’ CCW, and this research helps create a better understanding of what it means to have an asset-orientation towards Black students, and what it might mean when educators reflect on whether and how Black students’ cultural capital are embedded in classroom spaces. Having a better understanding of young, Black students’ CCW also means that educators can better enact asset-based pedagogies, such as culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), at an earlier stage in Black students’ lives.