Denying Pathology While Implying It? Avoiding Person-Centered Pathology Traps in Counter-Deficit Research

Pathological thinking surrounding disenfranchised and marginalized communities remains a problem in education policy, popular discourse, and research on marginalized communities. Scholars employ a host of frameworks to challenge such pathological thinking, often through the language of deficits. We argue that in an effort to refute pathological thinking about marginalized communities, counter-deficit frameworks potentially rely on a different logic of pathology through an overreliance on person-centered rationales for educational success and educational inequity. Specifically, this essay demonstrates how scholars, if they are not careful, can fall into two different pathology traps: (a) the “high achievers trap” and (b) the “blaming teachers trap.” We offer guidance of how to avoid such traps through careful attention to structural forces of oppression.