Talk Title: Our students ARE the capital: Leveraging Community Cultural Wealth to Address Student-deficit mindsets in teaching and learning. 

Talk Abstract: Student deficit mindsets in education manifest when the dominant culture associates minoritized students’ learning difficulties with the learner’s lived experience, background, and potential lack of preparation (i.e., social and cultural capital). Instead of acknowledging and addressing the structural and systemic barriers that minoritized students navigate daily, an educator operating with this perspective attempts to ‘fix’ the student. A deficit mindset perpetuates stereotypes, causes othering, isolates learners, and widens inequity in the learning environment. Drawing from the work of critical scholar Tara J. Yosso’s (2006) acclaimed research on community cultural wealth (CCW) as a critical race theory (CRT), this talk will discuss the powerful benefits of infusing a critical perspective to teaching and learning. Empowering students to leverage the various forms of capital (i.e., aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial and resistant capital, Yosso, 2006) that emerges from their lived experiences, shifts agency back to the learner. Both educators and learners benefit from this critical approach, facilitating a more impactful and growth-centric learning experience for all.