Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities and Classrooms (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities and Classrooms Sandra R. Schecter González, Norma, Moll, Luis C., & Amanti, Cathy . (Eds.). (2005). Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities and Classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pp. 307, US$34.50. This edited volume brings together new and previously published articles and essays by university researchers and practitioners who have collaborated over an 18-year period on the Funds of Knowledge project, based at the University of Arizona. The book is divided into four parts. The first of these offers four essays on the theoretical underpinnings of the Funds of Knowledge project; a second part, containing six chapters, describes various teacher research initiatives in the greater Tucson area. The four chapters in Part Three discuss work within the same conceptual framework conducted in urban contexts in the eastern United States, while in Part Four a concluding commentary by Luis Moll links and summarizes the papers. The title of the volume (and the project) relates to the authors' central premise that linguistic and ethnic minority families possess valuable social and intellectual resources, particular to their trajectories and circumstances, upon which formal classroom instruction can effectively be built. The envisioned approach toward realizing these pedagogic goals is ethnographically grounded action research, wherein reflective practitioners seek to uncover the processes and practices within families and social networks that both give sense to and help people make sense of their daily lives. While this theoretical premise and this (teacher-as-learner) approach should by now be self-evident, sadly, in a majority of North American contexts, a deficit model of education is still prevalent, notwithstanding the impoverished academic results associated with its [End Page 298] legacy. This volume's contents, and its advocacy refrain, therefore remain timely: We could do with some reminding. Foremost among the volume's strengths is that it brings together an important body of work that has served as a reference point for researchers and educators with a commitment to principles and practices of community-based pedagogy. Papers published in the introductory sections by Moll and colleagues provide insights into the theoretical shaping of this seminal work and the theorizing practices that have produced a lexicon with far-ranging impact – funds of knowledge, reciprocal relations, networks of exchange, confianza. While the socio-political and economic contexts of the households described do not have direct analogues in Canada – we have not driven the middle classes out of our large cities, nor have we expelled minorities from rural areas into urban settings – the basic tenets of the Funds of Knowledge project are applicable to schooling contexts within a majority of North American urban areas, that is, schooling contexts defined by significant linguistic and cultural diversity. Moreover, the examples provided by practitioner authors on the ground constitute excellent points of departure for educators with the will and imagination to empower parents and other community members in the education of their children. A stunning essay by Tucson teacher Marla Hensley on her own efforts to tap into the resources of families – with respect, for example, to quilting, tortilla making, and weaving – concludes with a variety of heuristics, including involving parents in specific class projects that would benefit from their linguistic and cultural resources and integrating the work/occupations of parents into thematic planning of class curricula. Tucson teacher Cathy Amanti's contribution discusses a learning module centring on students' extensive knowledge of horses. The majority of the Mexicano/a students in the Tucson area have frequent contact with horses, usually on ranches owned by relatives; thus, the topic provides a strategic entry point into many school subjects. Amanti describes how students collect texts and other material and relate them to their experience, or schema. These same students compile rich Spanish and English vocabularies describing the upkeep and functions or activities of these valued domestic animals. The horses' bodies provide an entrance into the biological sciences, including anatomy, cell theory, gestation, and evolution. In another essay, Anne Browning-Aiken applies the students' and their families' extensive knowledge of copper mining, a major boom–bust industry in the Tucson area, to the formal study of history, language, mathematics, and science. For example, in...