You might want to refer to this book. Candlin, C. (2011) Discourses of deficit. London: Palgrave. You may view the table of content and some pages on amazon.com The book provides an excellent treatment of deficit discourses in education (and also other fields like health), not just in third world but other countries as well.

Thanks Moses, your recommended text really offers a solid grounding to understanding deficit thinking and teaching.

I would suggest that this is a larger trend that is part of history of education literature. Your example of third-world countries is one that highlights the problems with this sort of conceptualization of teaching and learning - but the field of educational history itself suffers from a tendency to identify everything that is wrong with students, teachers, society... some of this scholarship is helpful, of course. Much of it, though, is influenced by popular misconceptions of education, and in turn does not shed light on the educational structures being investigated.

I would like to suggest that a more politically correct term for "third-world countries" is "developing countries" or "the majority world." As a cross-cultural researcher, I need to understand education systems from the perspective of the countries I am investigating, rather than comparing the countries' education systems to those of Western countries. Did you mean that people investigating education systems in developing countries look at them using deficit models? Or did you mean that developing countries look at themselves from a deficit perspective? I think you meant the former.

Dear Jacqueline -- It's interesting that you use the term 'deficit," which is primarily an economics/accounting term. Not merely you, but others such as the book Moses references above. What would a 'surplus' of education look like, whether a "developing" country or not? Why are we using such terms drawn from economics at all in dealing with education? For example, education will be as 'inefficient' (input/output ratio) as it is permitted to be, even in national educational systems. We generally strive for lower teacher/student ratios when resources permit (economically inefficient). And remember, too, that an educational 'exchange' is not subject to market rationality. When you teach something to someone, you are not giving up something in exchange -- except maybe your time (yes, an economic resource). You still retain your knowledge, after the 'exchange.' The same goes for 'marginal utility' in education -- it never decreases but always increases since there is no inflection point (nor Pareto optimality)

Educational goods and benefits (knowledge, skills, judgment, etc) are entirely different, conceptually speaking, from economic goods and benefits. We should not succumb to economistic ideas -- especially that of 'deficit.' We have to remember that education is a natural expression of learning from one generation to the next, quite apart from what is imposed by national educational systems which are everywhere the same. Only in the latter could the notion of deficit get any purchase at all -- the economist's dream.

Best wishes,

David Ericson

Hi David,

Your comment has made me fully aware of the many challenges and complex nature of this issue. Jacqueline.

Hi Carol, I have been doing more research since I read your comment. I was quite inspired by it and am currently exploring both options you mentioned. Jacqueline.

Yvonne Hébert - The University of Calgary

You may wish to consider reading a new book, Critical Perspectives on International Education, with Y. Hébert & A. Abdi, Eds., published by Sense Publishers this year, 2013.

Thanks Yvonne.

@Jacqueline: Perhaps your question would be better if you substituted the word 'deficit' with the word 'deficient'?