Dismantling Deficit Thinking in Academic Libraries: Theory, Reflection, and Action.

Abstract

As Instructional librarians, we are asked to help students locate "good" information, 5 navigate databases in information literacy sessions, and become strategic consumers 6 of information. Although these are pretty standard, normal, and expected tasks in 7 academic libraries, there are tendencies for us to dwell on assumptions about what 8 our students know or don't know. We intentionally or unintentionally see ourselves as 9 suppliers of knowledge to the unknowing. As noted by bell hooks (1994), a deficit 10 mindset can easily take the shape of a teacher believing they are helping a student 11 when we may, in fact, be expecting students to adhere to academic cultural norms that 12 are left un-interrogated and continue to perpetuate harm. Dismantling Deficit Thinking 13 in Academic Libraries makes the case that these assumptions and expectations can 14 all be traced to the idea of deficit thinking. Rather than merely dwelling at the fact 15 that deficit thinking exists within higher education and academic library spaces, this 16 book is more of a call to action: how do we meaningfully shift away from "blaming 17 the victim" and instead apply a strengths-based approach to our teaching? Not only