ABSTRACT
Our decisions to view students in poverty through an equity lens or a deficit one can have a considerable impact on their futures. Deficit models, grounded in individualism, elitism, hierarchy, and competition, explain poverty as personal failures in students and their families. In contrast, an equity perspective examines structural factors that contribute to poverty. The tension between the equity and deficit perspectives manifests itself in, among other places, curriculum content and the associated assumptions about what constitutes “expert” knowledge (Anyon, 1981; Apple & Beane, 2007; Pearl, 1997).
