New Issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy on "Challenging the Deficit Model and the Pathologizing of Children" now Online

We are pleased to announce the publication of  the Volume 9, Number 1, Winter 2015 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy.  The theme for this issue is: “Challenging the Deficit Model and the Pathologizing of Children: Envisioning Alternative Models.”

Here is the controversy posed for this issue:

Martin Seligman, founder of the field of positive psychology, has said that, “Modern psychology has been co-opted by the disease model. We've become too preoccupied with repairing damage when our focus should be on building strength and resilience, especially in children.” Is this also true of modern education? Political and pedagogical responses, from the “War on Poverty” through “No Child Left Behind” to address the educational gaps in academic achievement of historically marginalized and neglected groups (the poor, minorities and children with disabilities), were often deeply rooted in a language of cultural deprivation and special needs. Has this deficit model begun to surreptitiously creep into our educational discourse for all children? Have we become too focused on needs and deficiencies and forgotten that children also have capacities and strengths? Does the current emphasis on accountability and standardized testing contribute to the pathologizing of children? We invite authors to respond critically to this argument, envision alternative models, examine historical causes and precedents, analyze political and social ramifications, and share real life stories on the influence these ways of thinking have on the classroom and on the learning as experienced by students.

With Jeb Bush apparently ready to run for the presidency in 2016, our readers might find our look behind the reform movements in Florida intriguing and enlightening.  See the Passero and Jones article.

Here is a complete table of contents for our new issue:

SECTION 1: THE PROSPECT EXPERIENCE: A STRENGTH-BASED ALTERNATIVE AND ITS LEGACY

To Patricia F. Carini: A Dedication

 Susan Donnelly, Guest Editor

Resisting the “Single Story”

Ellen Schwartz  

Two examples of the Prospect Descriptive Process:
•Universal Power to Create (A Slide Show), Susan Donnelly
•Children’s Imaginative Communities - Microcosms of Democracy, Susan Donnelly

Link to the Prospect Archive of Children’s Work housed at the University of Vermont, Center for Digital Initiatives http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/getCollection.xql?pid=prospect

SECTION TWO: ARTICLES IN RESPONSE TO THE CONTROVERSY

Surpassing Sisyphus: The Tenacious and Promising Struggle to Push and Support a Strengths-Based Ideology and Practice in Education
 Sara Truebridge

How We are Complicit: Challenging the School Discourse of Adolescent Reading
 Andrea Davis,  Teachers College, Columbia University

 Against Rubbish Collecting: Education and Restively Ambivalent Youth
 Tracy Psycher, University of Minnesota

Breaking the Mold: Thinking Beyond Deficits

Elyse Hambacher and Winston C. Thompson,  University of New Hampshire

Urban Teachers Engaging in Critical Talk: Navigating Deficit Discourse and Neoliberal Logics
Heidi K. Pitzer,  St. Lawrence University

 Bottom Line Choices: Effects of Market Ideology in Florida’s Voluntary Preschool Policies
 Angela C. Passero and Roderick J. Jones, University of South Florida

 Precarity and Pedagogical Responsibility

Ann Chinnery,  Simon Fraser University
 

 SECTION THREE: UPCOMING FORUM

Building on the Strengths of Families and Communities
The 17th Annual Educational Law and Social Justice Forum
Western Washington University
Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Preview of the Forum’s Upcoming Discussion

“Everyone Should Feel so Connected and Safe”: Using Parent Action Teams to Reach all Families”

--by Members of the Parent Action Team: John Korsmo, Miguel Camerena, Andrea Clancy, Ann Eco, Anne Jones, Bill Nutting, Basilia Quiroz, Azucena Ramirez, Veronica Villa-Mondragon, Stacy Youngquist

WATCH OUR BLOG FOR MORE INFORMATION ON OUR UPCOMING FORUM.