Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

42 Language Diversity in the ClassroomAs we shall see in the following chapters, three broad explanationshave been proposed for group-based educational difficulties. The firstholds that some populations suffer substantive deficiencies because ofgenetic inferiority; the second, that such deficits may be caused by faultyenvironments; the third, that what the first two positions view as deficitsare, in fact, differences attributable to variations in environment that are in themselves neither better nor worse than ‘mainstream’ varieties.The first two explanations are essentially untenable, however, and the‘difference’ viewpoint is the most reasonable on the basis of the availableevidence. The implication is that difficulties faced by certain groups(lower-class ones, for instance) are deficits only in a social sense, onlywhen assumptions of the correctness of other values (middle-class ones,for instance) are taken into account. While suffering from social ratherthan cognitive deficits is not necessarily a lesser burden, of course,accuracy is important here, and desirable interventions can have littlechance of meaningful effect if they are based upon faulty models.‘Disadvantage’ was a term first employed by those espousing anenvironmental-deficit thesis (Deutsch, 1967). Thus, it became closelyassociated with so-called ‘compensatory education’, a thrust largely builtupon the environmentalist belief that inadequate patterns of earlysocialization could be remedied in school and pre-school programs(Bereiter & Engelmann, 1966). More enlightened adherence to ‘difference’models, in which environmental deficit and remedial education areobviously seen as flawed and inappropriate conceptions (indeed,‘compensation’ is hardly the mot juste if existing patterns are notinherently deficient), meant that ‘disadvantage’ became viewed in anegative light. Hill-Burnett (1979) argued, for instance, that ‘disadvantage’was merely a euphemism for deficit; Adler (1979) discussed aportmanteau ‘deprived/disadvantaged’ concept; de Valdés (1979) used‘disadvantaged’ and ‘deficient’ interchangeably; and Moss (1973: 19), in acontribution to an Open University block on language and learning,argued that ‘whether you prefer to use ‘‘disadvantaged’’, ‘‘deprived’’ orsome other term qualified by ‘‘socially’’, ‘‘economically’’ or ‘‘culturally’’is less important than the fact that there is no child who can fit into such acategory’. The anti-labelling sentiment here may be admirable (althoughless than crystal clear), but the impatience with distinctions of terminologyis not. Typically associated with a deficit model, ‘disadvantage’ hasbecome a word to be avoided. This is largely due, however, to a postmodernhypersensitivity that, in the final analysis, does no one any good.The term remains useful, and it need not be lumbered with unfairconnotations. 1