Cultural Deficit Model

Evolution of Thinking about Difference

Historically, U.S. researchers from various disciplines have been interested in racial differences and explaining why they exist. African Americans have been the primary focus of these early efforts since the midto-late 1800s. The prevailing view during these times was the biological deficit or genetically deficient model: Racial differences were caused by insufficient internal abilities, such as poor intelligence and/or inferior genes. In contrast to the biological explanation, the focus shifted to sociocultural factors related to culture and poverty—the cultural deficit model.

To explain academic achievement disparities of racial/ethnic minority children, the cultural deficit model asserts that minority cultural values are dysfunctional, which is the primary reason minority children fail to achieve academically and occupationally. The deficit model further assumes that minorities do not value education as a means of social and financial mobility. Finally, because cultural values are passed on through the family, the minority family is also viewed to be dysfunctional and insufficient.

The deficit model had become very popular during the 1960s and 1970s and influenced educational and psychological theory and research, and even political views. The deficit model's advantage is that it has clear practical implications: Schools need to provide children with the cultural experiences that they are missing at home, and help families to function better. For example, federal Head Start programs were founded to help poor minority children who came from culturally deprived families and homes.

Criticisms of the deficit model are numerous. First, the deficit model is unfair to minority children and their families, focusing the blame on their culture. The deficit model is also inaccurate because it deemphasizes the powerful effects of poverty on the families, schools, and neighborhoods, which synergistically affect academic achievement and occupational attainment. It also strongly implied that White middle-class values are superior. Fourth, the deficit model became equated with pathology in which a group's cultural values, families, or lifestyles transmit the pathology. Finally, the deficit model has limitations for scholarship because it is too narrow as an explanatory model (i.e., rigidly blames the family) for the academic underachievement of poor minority children. In short, the deficit model's negative effects are that children were narrowly viewed as ‘deprived’ and their families became ‘disadvantaged,’ ‘dysfunctional,’ and ‘pathological.’

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