Funds of Knowledge

Why read this text …

Teachers and researches, looking to enhance the teaching and learning of minority children, developed an approach known as Funds of Knowledge. You may find this approach useful for exploring student life-worlds and learning experiences, and useful as well for reflecting on your own teaching practices. The Funds of Knowledge approach promotes the notion that accessing knowledge students gain through participation in everyday household and community life, and drawing on this knowledge in teaching, enhances learning.

Historical Context

The "Funds of Knowledge" concept (hence FofK) originates from a research project carried out in the late 1980s at the University of Arizona in Tucson, a US city near the US/Mexican border. Collaborating researchers and teachers were motivated by social and pedagogical problems affecting the education of minority students in Arizona at this time (Moll et al., 1992). Widespread stigmatization exposed students of minority or immigrant backgrounds to discriminatory treatment in school. In response to this situation, a group of researchers and educators developed a project, drawing on ethnographic work that showing that every household, whether rich or poor, locally-rooted or immigrant, had access to diverse bodies of knowledge. These ‘funds of knowledge’ might include parental work experience and expertise, specific experiential knowledge children gained through early involvement in everyday activities or knowledge that abounded in their respective communities.

The original ‘FofK’ project was designed to explore how experiential knowledge, integral to children’ daily lives, could be utilized in teaching. The project also aimed to change how teachers viewed minority households, as educational resources for classroom teaching rather than as educational barriers (González 1995: 3). Teachers accessed pupils’ knowledge resources through home visits and qualitative interviews, and then drew on these in designing lessons. The original Funds of Knowledge project, discussed in various publications, kicked off a wide range of projects that modified the original approach, adapting it to new local circumstances and needs. The FofK approach is currently (and belatedly) being received in the European context.

Discussion

This pedagogical approach draws on two anthropological insights: 1) that all learning processes are socially embedded (Vgl Moll 1992, 1995) and 2) that all persons are knowledgeable, despite differences in their knowledge sources and personal experiences. The first step in this approach is to explore the lifeworlds of learners, to identify their knowledge resources. Flexible ethnographic methodology allows for a range of creative and experimental approaches. Classic ethnographic home visit allow for intensive encounters with learner’s lifeworlds. Alternative methods of child- or parent-guided neighbourhood walks have also proven useful. Various classroom methods e.g. writing or drawing tasks, through which learners provide insight into their life-worlds, have also been tested. All of these methods require training in intercultural encounters, such as home visits, and in developing ways of working sensitively and pedagogically with ones newly gained insight into students’ lifeworlds.

The second step is to explore various training exercises that help teachers reflect on and question their teaching practices, and gain a sense of the effect of their position and cultural assumptions on learning processes. In the original project, anthropologists sat in on classes and discussed their observations of classroom dynamics in later follow-up meetings with teachers, drawing particular attention to blind spots. Problematic classroom interaction might also be followed up by memory protocols and new perspectives generated in dialogue with other teachers. In another exercise, teachers explored their own family backgrounds over three or four generations – to gain awareness of their lifeworlds, experience and social position, which in some cases, stood in contrast to the lifeworlds and experiences of the children. The literature unanimously documents that teachers have in retrospect perceived this confrontation with their own history, experience, position, and teaching style as incredibly productive.

This self-reflective sensibility is a basic prerequisite for realizing the last, most important step of the FofK approach: designing lessons. Drawing on more in-depth knowledge of learners’ knowledge resources, teachers design didactically and pedagogically meaningful modules and learning processes embedded in the actual lifeworld experiences of their learners. This approach has no one set course; it emphasises attending to and being responsive to specific contexts. FofK is at core a transformative learning process through which teachers gain pedagogical competency in "translating" students extracurricular lifeworld knowledge and realities into the curriculum.

Practical Example

The "Bridge project,” a follow-up FofK project with special focus on mathematics, aimed to connect forms of “community knowledge” observed by teachers to mathematics teaching (Civil 2007: 5f). Teacher conducting home visits thus deliberately searched for existing funds of ‘mathematical’ knowledge, and later drew on this "raw material" in, identifying options for tailoring mathematics lessons. When one teacher reported being shown a collection of foreign coins, other teachers reflecting on this discovered that a significant portion of the class had a wealth of experience in various currencies and conversion processes in the context of their migration experience. They designed third and fifth grade lessons dealing with integers and decimals respectively, and developed "class currencies" for calculating exchange rates, and conducting price comparisons. Participating teachers expressed that in addition to purely mathematical aspects, students dealt extensively with the social dimensions of money (property, social security, food stamps, monthly budgeting etc.), and in doing so presented themselves both as learners and experts in this area of knowledge (Vgl Civil 2007: 6ff).

Thinking further:

How did you gain knowledge of your world when growing up? Which experiences influenced your own learning? Can you link particular experiences with particular kinds of knowledge?
What didn’t you learn in school? Was what you learned outside of school ever addressed in school? If so, how? If not, why not?
Which learning experiences affected your choice of becoming a teacher and/or influence your ‘being’ a teacher?
How might you access the ‘funds of knowledge’ of your present students? What similarities and/or differences might you find their knowledge resources? How might you draw on these differences and similarities didactically and pedagogically?

Please note:

Working with the ‘funds of knowledge’ approach requires training in developing rapport, ethical sensibility and mutually trusting relationships.

KEY-WORDS/ CROSS-REFERENCES

Doing school; Ethnographic gaze; informal & formal learning; community knowledge

Sources

Civil, M. (2007). Building on community knowledge: An avenue to equity in mathematics education. In N. Nassir & P. Cobb (Ed.), Improving access to mathematics: Diversity and equity in the classroom. (105-117). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

González, N. (1995). The funds of knowledge for teaching project. Practicing Anthropology, 17. 3–6.

González, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, K. (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & González, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31, 132–141.

Authors

Paul Sperneac-Wolfer, Christa Markom, Jelena Tosic (AUSTRIA)

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use, which may be made of the information contained therein.