What is Deficit Thinking

This chapter explores how deficit and asset thinking of preservice teachers is influenced when they are provided with community-engaged learning (CEL) that prepares them to serve children and families from a marginalized community. Twenty-seven early childhood education preservice teachers participated in CEL at a local HUD neighborhood as part of a junior level course called Families, Schools, and Communities. Narrative inquiry guided the methodological framework to analyze data from course assignments including weekly Exit Slips and student reflections from the actual CEL experience. From those data sources, several themes emerged in relation to asset thinking, deficit think, and pedagogical approaches to learning about marginalized communities using CEL. Students recognized asset thinking in a variety of ways, but also were stuck using deficit thinking to judge the community's utility of a childcare event.