In our first Ally Tips of this new academic year, we addressed that unlearning privilege is the first step to becoming allies. One of the ways is to unlearn our deficit-based thinking and languages and instead learn asset/strength-based thinking and languages. This week, we will delve into concepts and vocabulary that can promote the practice of asset/strength-based thinking in our workplace and classrooms.
Quitting Deficit-based Thinking to Apply Asset/Strength-Based Thinking
Frames of thought and language are powerful because they affect the ways that we perceive others and choose words to describe them. An example is deficit-based thinking.1 It is very common to first associate individuals with minoritized identities and backgrounds with “at risk” factors that can prevent their success.2 The underlying assumption of such thinking is that their cultural values and practices are something to overcome for success. On the contrary, an asset/strength-based frame of thought is based on the idea that everyone has strengths that can make them successful regardless of background.3,4 For instance, Black female students choose health-related majors and more explicitly address social justice within and through their scholarship because it greatly matters to the lives and survival of their communities as they witness disproportionately high mortality rates of Black women when giving birth.5,6 However, many female students of color leave the STEM majors because they become frustrated by the disciplinary culture that perceives their commitment to social justice as unnecessary.7 An important point here is that their commitment to equity should not be framed as a barrier hindering them from fitting into STEM, but as a reason why they not only persist but bring changes for the better in STEM that may not happen without their commitment to equity. In other words, the racial and cultural contexts of women faculty and students of color are not barriers but strengths.8
To apply an asset/strength-based approach, the first thing is to unlearn negative stereotypes, and the second is to acknowledge the strengths of colleagues and students with minoritized backgrounds. Because people grow, we also need to be continually vigilant about discovering assets that are emergent as well as historically unseen. Today, we will focus on learning key concepts that help practice the asset/strength-based approach.
1. Intersectionality
Intersectionality is used as an analytical method and supportive tool to validate the subjectivity and recognize the power of what women of color and individuals with interlocking minoritized identities have to tell. With Kimberlé Crenshaw coining the term “intersectionality” in 19899 and Combahee River Collective, a Black lesbian social justice collective,10 this concept comes from a long lineage of thinking about the nature of oppression of Black women. Crenshaw expounded that when it comes to anti-discrimination laws, it is often Black men’s perspectives that are being addressed; when it comes to gender discrimination, it is white women’s perspectives.11 However, Black women’s realities are invisible due to the prototypes of race and gender, compounded by racism and sexism. Intersectionality was, thus, developed to show the unique experiences and barriers of Black women by explaining how multiple social identities work on various layers. Ross (2017) contends that theorizing intersectionality is the epistemological power of women of color and their praxisfor them to feel fully human.12 What Ross means is that the unique perspectives that stem from intersecting marginalized identities should be treated as assets to improve equity and bring innovations to our institutions.
2. Culturally relevant approaches
Culturally relevant approaches were initially conceived by educational scholars. While the names and constructs vary among them (i.e., culturally relevant pedagogy13, culturally responsive pedagogy14, culturally responsive teaching15, and culturally relevant education16), a common argument across these approaches is that communities of color foster different forms of cultural capital and values because they have to “survive and resist macro and micro-forms of oppressions.”17 Tara J. Yosso explicitly articulated that the cultural capital includes, but not limited to, linguistic, resistant, aspirational, navigational, social, and familial capital18 She also asks the question, “Whose culture has capital?” critiquing that the cultural capital of minoritized groups is systematically devalued by those in power.19
3. Funds of knowledge
Funds of knowledge was originally conceptualized by Vélez-Ibáñez in 1983 to shift the deficit-based perspectives on students from U.S. Mexican households.20 The unique living environment of immigrant families in the U.S. generated “historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills” that are essential for their functioning and well-being.21 Although academic institutions have historically minimized the roles of these bodies of knowledge, Velez-Ibanez’s approach is premised on the fact that every individual has the knowledge to enrich the discussion when discussions connect personal and academic spheres.22
Action Tips for Allies
- Listen to realities perceived by colleagues and students with minoritized identities with respect and take them as assets capable of improving our institution and the inquiry of science.
- Intentionally pay attention to how colleagues and students with minoritized identities utilize the cultural capital fostered by their communities and collaborate with them to find ways to highlight their capital for success. Educate oneself on the cultural values and dispositions of minoritized colleagues and students and reflect on how those can be embodied in the classroom and work cultures.
- Value personal stories about how colleagues have arrived and are arriving where they are. (e.g., asking about important values that female colleagues of color have learned from their families and communities and hurdles they may have had to experience.)
- Normalize talking about personal lives in the workplace and invite colleagues and students to share how their personal lives are connected to their professional lives. (e.g., as listening to women with children juggling familial responsibilities, also invite them to share how they are working efficiently.)
Weekly Resources
- Article: Strengths vs. Deficit Based Thinking Guide - This post lists characteristics of asset- and deficit-based thinking, offering ideas on promoting asset-based thinking at the workplace and in classrooms.
- Article: An Intersectional Approach to Inclusion at Work - The author talks about how it is beneficial for organizations to include from the margin using intersectionality.
- Book: Invisible: Theology and the Experience of Asian American Women - The book applies intersectionality to reveal how discrimination against Asian American women is perpetuated in forms of racism, sexism, and xenophobia but is invisible in the U.S.
- Video: On Diversity: Access Ain’t Inclusion - Anthony Abraham Jack addresses that DEI efforts to improve access should not be the end goal of higher education institutions. Applying intersectionality and asset-based thinking, the speaker conveys the importance of building different agendas for the inclusion and retention of minoritized students, which can be applied to faculty and administrators at colleges and universities.