The authors discuss various deficit theories in this week's chapter on culture

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The authors discuss various deficit theories in this week's chapter on culture. The first of these theories is the genetic deficit, which views genes as the indicator of one's ability to learn (Ovando et al., 2018). Belief in the genetic deficit is damaging to education of the language minority student because the standard of measurement is always gauged by the language majority students (Delpit, 1995 as cited in Ovando et al., 2018). The second of the deficit theories is the cultural deficit, which views poor school performance of minority groups is a result of one's culture. The belief that low SES language minority students have language and literacy factors which impede on their scholarly advancement is currently still perpetuated by some educators (Ovando et al., 2018). The implication of the various "deficit theories" discussed by the authors on the educational achievement of minority language students is the viewpoint that there is something wrong with the student, rather than looking at their uniqueness (Ovando et al., 2018), doing so may lead to teacher's lowering their academic expectations of these students and in turn it stifles the educational achievement of minority language students. An argument that would render both theories as flawed would be: how do these researchers explain the groups viewed as genetically and culturally deficient, having a high academic achievement in their native countries? How come there seems to be an absence of deficiency until the students arrive in the United States and are measured against an ethnocentric standard? The answer would be highlighting that both of these deficit theories are flawed because genetics and/or cultures do not dictate the intellectual capacity of individuals. Questions: Read the reader's response and critique his or her answer. What are your thoughts or opinions? Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? What can you add to extend the conversation?