Thinking beyond deficits in Southwest China: Perspectives of ethnic minority teachers on academic achievement disparities among students

Global and national education agendas are concerned with improving the quality and equality of learning outcomes. School systems involuntarily continue to produce new and perpetuate existing inequities and injustices, particularly for minority students. While previous research has highlighted the potential causes and effects of educational inequity, little is known about the perspectives of teachers with minoritised backgrounds regarding the persistence of and responses to educational disparities. This research draws on the literature on deficit thinking and culturally responsive teaching to explore the views of ethnic minority teachers on students' academic achievement disparities in an ethnically diverse region of China. Interviews with 12 ethnic minority teachers show ethnic, biological and cultural deficit thinking when discussing students' schooling. Participants attributed their deficient-oriented thinking to their earlier teacher education experiences, where they acquired the discourse of zhiguo minzu concerning the different sociohistorical developments of minority groups in China. However, teacher participants stated that they also engaged in culturally responsive teaching to support the ethnic identities of their students. These findings draw attention to the multi-layered perspectives of ethnic minority teachers, which comprise both the reproducing and the challenging of inequities about minorities.