Reimaging productive disciplinary engagement and expansive framing: A synthesis of equity-oriented scholarship

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Randi Engle’s frameworks for productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) and expansive framing drew on situative theory to advance novel conceptualizations of student engagement and the transfer of learning. In insisting that learners problematize content from their own perspective and author new knowledge, the frameworks show initial compatibility with asset-based approaches to securing equity for historically marginalized students. This article synthesizes four strands of scholarship that extend or “reimage” PDE and expansive framing in this critical direction. The strands include: (a) using PDE principles to engage learners from nondominant groups, (b) confronting unequal access to PDE, (c) widening PDE to embrace community funds of knowledge, and (d) promoting intercontextuality between school, home, and community. Together, the four strands illustrate the frameworks’ potential to elevate the cultural knowledge present in marginalized communities while also widening access to discourses of power. However, only some of the scholarship fully realized this potential. Future work should continue exploring how to foster knowledge transfer across dominant and nondominant contexts in ways that problematize systems of oppression.