The Push and the Pull: Deficit Models, Ruby Payne, and Becoming a “Warm Demander”

Despite a caveat at the end of A Framework for Understanding Poverty ( 1996/2005 ), Ruby Payne’s deficit model has led researchers to criticize her effect on White pre-service teaching students (Smiley and Helfenbein in Multicult Perspect 13(1):5–15, 2011 ; Gorski in Educ Leadersh 65:32–36, 2008a , Equity Excell Educ 41(1):130–148, b ). However, according to the cover, there are over one million copies of Payne’s Framework in circulation and the text remains pervasive in both K-12 school districts and schools of education across the country. As educators will likely encounter the ideas in the Framework , if not the text itself, in their teacher education program or shortly thereafter, this paper suggests that those who teach the teachers explicitly engage in a critical dialogue with the Framework in the hopes of leading educators to deeper understandings of their own positionality in teaching the Other. The authors propose a cultural studies approach that seeks to contextualize both the discursive strategies of the Framework but also to disrupt the “perceived wisdom” of the majoritarian narratives in Payne’s book as illustrated by the "push and pull" experienced by this teacher. By using data and counter-storytelling, teacher educators can lead teacher candidates to observe the struggles of teachers in the field and infuse a more ethical foundation for their interactions with the Other (Solórzano and Yosso in Qual Inq 8(1):23–44, 2002 ).