Building Relationships with Families and Funds of Knowledge

This is one of the seminal articles on Funds of Knowlege: "Public schools have relied on a deficiency model to structure instruction for minority children that underestimates the funds of knowledge that U.S.-Mexican households contain. We argue that these funds are not only a key to understanding the cultural systems in which U.S.-Mexican children emerge, but are also important and useful assets in the classroom."

This is one of the seminal articles on the concept of "Funds of Knowledge", discussing how research into students' households can inform classroom practice.

This book is one of the seminal works on Funds of Knowledge. "The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions."

In this article, Zipin celebrates the concept of Funds of Knowledge and the ways that it challenges the way "academic curriculum selectively privileges cultural capital embodied in elite social-structural positions." It then examines issues with how this concept is often applied: the "problematic tendencies to build curriculum around (1) light (i.e. positive) but not dark knowledge from learners’ lifeworlds; and (2) knowledge contents but not ways of knowing and transacting knowledge (funds of pedagogy)."

This article provides an overview and analysis of the literature on Funds of Knowledge.

This article provides another review of the literature on Funds of Knowledge.

The author posits that if teachers can tap into family funds of knowledge -- the wealth of knowledge found in the home -- they can be better prepared to foster parental and family engagement.

This case study describes "an academic intervention designed to enhance the motivation and classroom engagement of English Language Learners (ELLs) during literacy-based activities. Stemming from a sociocultural perspective of literacy (Au, 1993; Perez, 2004) within a funds of knowledge framework (González, Moll, & Amanti , 2005), our approach emphasizes personalized learning (Redding, 2013) by having the students design, develop, and implement classroom lessons based on their own interests."

"The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify the unique funds of knowledge among three Hispanic families living in the same city, specifically, how parents supported their children’s mathematics learning through funds of knowledge. Participants contributed to their children’s mathematics learning by promoting the five National Council of Teachers of Mathematics process standards—problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, connection, and representation. Participating parents shared knowledge with their children through questioning and discussion, providing experiences, and promoting practice. In this study, participants valued education and supported their children’s mathematics learning at home and school activities."

This research is centered on a teacher educator who is part of a curriculum redesign for a teacher education program, and examines how she navigates her identity through the second year of involvement in the redesign.

In this research article, the authors examine the intersections of culturally sustaining pedagogy and critical family engagement to explore the possibilities for equitable family-school partnerships in urban schools. Based on the common values of trusting and caring relationships and power disruption within those fields, as well as data from a multi-year qualitative study of teachers and their relationships with students’ families, the authors introduce the framework of teacher-family solidarity. The framework challenges traditional conceptions of parent-teacher relationships, and the supporting narratives of teachers and parent/caregivers illustrate that teacher-family solidarity should become an indispensable part of culturally sustaining pedagogy and practice.