Cultural Deprivation

1
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

2
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.

3
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

4
Language Deficiencies of Lower-Class Children

• Failure to master certain uses of language
• ASSUMPTIONS
• Language as not of vital importance to
  lower-class families (survival doesnt 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.

5
Language Development of Lower-Class 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. Hes 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.

6
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.

7
Using the Critique

• Critique of Social/Emotional Problems
• If cases of personality disturbance among poor
  children are more common, it is still unfair and
  impractical to categorize the majority as such.
• Older children frequently show the damaging
  affects of school failure on personality
  development. The remedy is unclear except to
  foster self-confidence.
• Emotional disturbances can be produced by
  misguided management practices (holding children
  too much)
• Inappropriate socialization by the parents can be
  remedied through socializing children in class.
  Teaching naive children to act in a new
  situation. Not psychotherapy

• Critique of Cultural Deprivation
• Using a monolithic construction of lower-class
  culture that blames the family is problematic
• 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 isnt)
  this begs the question as to why the school
  system failed the childrens parents? The source
  is the system itself.
• 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. 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.

8
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

9
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

10
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)

11
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 theyll like you

12
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?