Funds of Knowledge
Household knowledge is a source of teaching and learning in classrooms.
What it is
Funds of Knowledge applies the knowledge and skills of daily household routines to create meaningful and innovative approaches to classroom teaching and learning. This approach rejects a deficit model, where poor and culturally diverse families are presumed to be incapable of offering rich learning experiences at home for their children. Instead, educators recognize and value family expertise. The approach creates a platform for co-creating knowledge from school to home and home to school. As one parent says, “though we may not have a certificate in hand, we are also teachers.”¹
How it works
The Funds of Knowledge approach has its origins as a researcher-teacher collaboration to improve instructional practice among Latinx students.² Trained and guided by the researchers, teachers assume the roles of researchers and ethnographers as they visit their students’ homes and establish rapport with parents. They become learners as they observe the home context and interview family members. Teachers come to understand the ways that students and their families use language, literacy, and mathematics in the home and community. In turn, the data help teachers develop a curriculum that is based on what families naturally do — their “funds of knowledge” — and teachers find opportunities to bring parents into classrooms as experts to demonstrate their skills.
There are a number of ways to use this model when teacher home visits are not possible. For example:
- Parents and teachers can get together and talk about a subject like math and discuss not only the content of problems, but their values, and the reasoning behind them. Facilitators structure these conversations as co-equal teaching and learning activities.
- Parents and teachers can join together in workshops that focus on the connection between academic subjects and real-world activities.
What changes
In the Funds of Knowledge approach, teachers participate in study groups with researchers and conduct home visits. This experience makes them aware of the home as a learning environment and equips them to be more sensitive to individual students and to be able to personalize classroom learning.³ Teachers also change the nature of the discussions in study groups and explore not only how school math is taught, but also how to connect everyday and academic mathematics.
In math workshops for parents, shifts happen in the ways teachers and researchers develop relationships with parents. Parents are not passive recipients of information from experts but active learners who share how they solve problems. When parents facilitate math workshops for other parents, they gain confidence and make parents feel that they are contributing equally to learning. Parents in these workshops form relationships with one another and their conversations change to include not only the lives of their children but also mathematical content.⁴
Approach in Action
Readiness Through Integrative Science and Engineering
The RISE (Readiness Through Integrative Science and Engineering) project develops a curriculum for young children through a home-school collaboration. Designed by a group of researchers, the project builds on the knowledge and practices of families and teachers. It entails dialogue, joint activities, and meaningful learning experiences that result in a continuously evolving curriculum.
Teachers participate in professional development workshops on science and engineering content. They receive individualized support in coaching sessions and take part in professional learning meetings, where they connect with other teachers. Teachers also develop relationships with families through joint science-focused activities and parent-teacher discussion groups.
At the outset, the researchers engaged parents and teachers both separately and together to promote trust building and reciprocal dialogue. Prior to a joint activity with parents, the researchers facilitated a session to create teacher awareness of the need to let parents initiate dialogue. The researchers also structured opportunities for parents to take the lead, asking them to plan routes for neighborhood walks and take photographs of these spaces. The activity enabled teachers to understand children’s classroom construction of blocks, buildings, and ramps. Both teachers and parents also worked together to create scrapbooks showing children’s learning experiences based on home observations, classroom documentation, and neighborhood walks.
Once a more balanced relationship between parents and teachers was formed, both groups began to co-plan future joint activities and discussions on their own. These activities enabled teachers to draw upon families’ funds of knowledge when designing the curriculum. Parents, in turn, became empowered to share experiences and to be active co-creators of their children’s curriculum.
Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as
Between 2004 and 2012, the Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as (CEMELA) developed an integrated model to connect mathematics teaching and learning to the social and cultural contexts of Latinx students and to increase the number of mathematics educators and teachers with this integrated knowledge. The model had the following characteristics:
- Define a clear goal: A consortium of four universities and their school partners sought to promote Latinx mathematical performance by strengthening the instructional strategies of teachers and preservice teachers. The universities in the consortium were the University of Arizona; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Illinois at Chicago; and University of New Mexico.
- Begin with families: The consortium’s approach began with understanding family strengths and “funds of knowledge” about the practical application of mathematics. Teaching and learning strategies incorporated community knowledge and the creation of linguistically and culturally responsive learning environments. Teaching and learning sought to bridge formal school instruction and everyday math.
- Create continuity of pedagogy: At the preservice level, the center developed teaching modules that incorporated research-based ideas from language and culture into existing mathematics content and pedagogy courses for preservice K–8 teachers. Field experiences exposed students to K–12 classrooms taught by CEMELA-trained teachers. Professional development opportunities included courses of study, study groups, and summer institutes. Faculty and teachers worked together to design the curriculum that brought together mathematics, language, and community and cultural knowledge.
- Create a feedback loop: Family perspectives were integrated in teacher preparation and continuing education. Family math programs based on the funds of knowledge approach focused on strengthening family skills and empowering families to promote Latinx math achievement. At the University of Arizona, parents took math courses and discussed their views about teaching and learning. They participated in study groups and their ideas contributed to the CEMELA modules.
The principles and lessons learned from CEMELA are sustained in new projects such as Hablemos de Matemáticas. In this pre-K–3 project, teachers and parents work together to learn from each other toward the common goal of increasing children’s opportunities to learn mathematics. Teacher home visits, parent and teacher leadership development, workshops, community walks, and parent visits to mathematics classes create opportunities for two-way dialogue and bridge the home-school contexts for early math learning.
Learn more
Funds of Knowledge in Early Childhood Education Handout
Endnotes
¹ Civil M., & Andrade, R. (2002). Transitions between home and school mathematics: Rays of hope amidst the passing clouds. In: G. de Abreu, A. J. Bishop, & N.C. Presmeg (Eds.). Transitions Between Contexts of Mathematical Practices. Mathematics Education Library, vol. 27 (pp. 146–169). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47674-6_7
² Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory Into Practice, 31(2), 132–141. Retrieved from https://www.csun.edu/~sb4310/Lessondesigncourse/funds%20of%20knowledge.pdf
³ Civil, M., & Andrade, R. (2002).
⁴ Civil, M. (2003). Adult learners of mathematics: A look at issues of class and culture. In: J. Evans, P. Healy, D. Kaye, V. Seabright, & A. Tomlin (Eds.). Policies and practices for adults learning mathematics: Opportunities and risks. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of Adults Learning Mathematics (ALM9) — A Research Forum (pp. 13–23) (invited plenary lecture). Stevenage, UK: Avanti Books. Retrieved from https://www.math.arizona.edu/~civil/ALM9Civil.pdf
