Falling into the gap: the coloniality of achievement gap discourses and their responses

Education scholars argue that the term “achievement gap” promotes deficit orientations toward certain students of color, focuses the field on individualistic rather than structural sources of inequality, and narrows viable policy solutions for equity concerns. Using a randomized survey, I examine whether the term “racial opportunity gap” mitigates critiques of the achievement gap term. I find that teachers responding to this language less strongly attributed the gap to individual characteristics—student motivation, student effort, and parenting—and more strongly prioritized incorporating students’ racial/ethnic and cultural identities into instruction to address the gap than teachers responding to “racial achievement gap” language.

show abstract

scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact Info

customersupport@researchsolutions.com

10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614

Henderson, NV 89052, USA

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Blog Terms and Conditions API Terms Privacy Policy Contact Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Made with 💙 for researchers

Part of the Research Solutions Family.

Falling into the gap: the coloniality of achievement gap discourses and their responses

Cited by 4 publications

References 54 publications

Racist norms until interests converge: a long tradition of egregious educational policy patterns and global implications

Racist norms until interests converge: a long tradition of egregious educational policy patterns and global implications

Unearthing the coloniality of neoliberalised curricular discourses to promote a public orientation towards secondary science education

Gaps in Achievement or Opportunity? How Achievement Gap Discourse Affects Teachers’ Beliefs and Priorities

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About