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Chapter 8 |
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Chapter Eight: Toward an Understanding of School Achievement begins with an exploration of deficit theories. These theories have been used to explain the reasons for minority underachievement suggesting that minorities are both genetically and culturally inferior. Challenges to these inaccurate philosophies are economic and social reproduction theories. Economic and social reproduction theorists claim that society has been constructed to promote failure in some communities. The purpose of educating the poor and minorities is to provide an adequate education and promote a good worker's ethic with expectations that minorities can participate in the working class. Nieto and Bode suggest that there is no simplistic answer to the inequities in student achievement. They discuss the research by John Ogbu, who investigates the differences between voluntary and involuntary minorities and how their experiences also impact their educational opportunities. While Ogbu's theories had a great impact in education and anthropology they are not without controversy. Ogbu's theories have been challenged as incomplete, ahistorical and discounting individual resistance or collusion. The importance of resistance theory is to understand students' agency in refusing to participate in the status quo. This can result in academic success or failure in a variety of ways. In addition, research has been provided in this chapter exploring the "ethic of care." Teachers can make a significant difference in their students' achievement. The "ethic of care" translates into high, but achievable expectations and a genuine concern for the well being of the student. Nieto and Bode conclude by challenging educators to keep in mind that there is no one perspective that will "fix" students or schools. Rather, we must always consider the personal, cultural, familial, interactive, political, relational and societal issues when trying to understand school and student achievement.
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