Luis C. Moll

Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms

(1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory Into Practice: Vol. 31, Qualitative Issues in Educational Research, pp. 132-141.

Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms

Contents: Preface. N. Gonzalez, L. Moll, C. Amanti, Introduction. Part I: Theoretical Underpinnings. N. Gonzalez, Beyond Culture: The Hybridity of Funds of Knowledge. C. Velez-Ibanez, J. Greenberg, Formation and Transformation of Funds of Knowledge. L. Moll, C. Amanti, D. Neff, N. Gonzalez, Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms. N. Gonzalez, L. Moll, M.F. Tenery, A. Rivera, P. Rendon, C. Amanti, Funds of Knowledge for Teaching in Latino Households. Part II: Teachers as Researchers. M.F. Tenery, La Visita. C. Amanti, Beyond a Beads and Feathers Approach. M. Hensley, Empowering Parents of Multicultural Backgrounds. P. Sandoval-Taylor, Home Is Where the Heart Is: A Funds of Knowledge-Based Curriculum Module. A. Browning-Aiken, Border-Crossings: Funds of Knowledge Within an Immigrant Household. J. Messing, Social Reconstructions of Schooling: Teacher Evaluations of What They Learned From Participation in the Funds of Knowledge Project. Part III: Translocations: New Contexts, New Directions. M. Brenden, Funds of Knowledge and Team Ethnography: Reciprocal Approaches. P. Buck, P.S. Sylvester, Pre-Service Teachers Enter Urban Communities: Coupling Funds of Knowledge Research and Critical Pedagogy in Teacher Education. C. Mercado, Reflections on the Study of Households in New York City and Long Island: A Different Route, a Common Destination. N. Gonzalez, R. Andrade, M. Civil, L. Moll, Funds of Distributed Knowledge. Part IV: Concluding Commentary. L. Moll, Reflections and Possibilities.

Bilingual Classroom Studies and Community Analysis: Some Recent Trends

The questions and issues that underlie bilingual education are constrained by deficit views about the abilities and experiences of language-minority students. In general, most research has emphasized how well students acquire English, assimilate into mainstream culture, and perform on tests of basic skills. Employing a sociocultural perspective that acknowledges the many resources that are available to children outside of the school, the author describes how research about childrens communities can be used to enhance instruction. For this to work, researchers and teachers must redefine their roles so that they enter into collaborative working relationships that focus on ways of bringing about educational change.

Lessons from Research with Language-Minority Children

Lupita, a third-grade student, pulled up a chair to a table and sat next to some classmates. She was doing research on the Sioux as part of a broader classroom project studying Native Americans, and had spent part of the morning selecting books from the school library with information about that cultural group. The students themselves had selected Native Americans as the general topic of study and were doing independent and collaborative research on their particular groups of choice. Lupita had already written several questions about the Sioux that would serve to guide her study. These questions were all in Spanish, her first language; the books she selected were all in English, her rapidly evolving second language (Moll & Whitmore, 1993). Eventually, with some assistance from the teacher, for the texts were difficult, Lupita was able to read portions of the books that contained relevant information to answer her questions, and she translated the information into Spanish so that she could incorporate it later into an essay summarizing her findings. Her classmate, Yolanda, doing research on the Yaquis, had developed a questionnaire in Spanish to interview a teacher aide who is Yaqui and trilingual in Yaqui, Spanish, and English. She would also write her report in Spanish but other children chose English, for they had the option of using either language as needed to complete their tasks. In yet another activity within this same classroom, a group of children decided to read a set of story books the teacher had assembled about the topic of war and how they affect peoples lives (Moll, Tapia, & Whitmore, 1993). As the children read the books and discussed them among themselves and with the teacher, they struggled in understanding realistic but fictional accounts of events about other people, at other places, and in other times. They borrowed from each others experiences in making sense of the stories, relating them to their own lives, and evalu-

Cruzando El Puente: Building Bridges to Funds of Knowledge

What can be learned fromthe Puente experience about identifying and incor porating local funds of knowledge of Latino communities into precollege preparation? This article focuses on how Puente teachers and students can enhance their practice and mutual learning through ethnographic fieldwork in the students’home community. Through investigating the many local funds of knowledge that can be utilized to validate students’ identities as knowledgeable individuals who can use such knowledge as a foundation for future learning, both teachers and students can engage in a critical pedagogy predicated on resources and not deficits.

Funds of Knowledge for the Poor and Forms of Capital for the Rich? A Capital Approach to Examining Funds of Knowledge.

Educational researchers have assumed that the concept of funds of knowledge is related to specific forms of capital. However, scholars have not examined if and how these theoretical frameworks can complement each other when attempting to understand educational opportunity for under-represented students. In this article, we argue that a funds of knowledge approach should also be studied from a capital perspective. We claim that bridging funds of knowledge and capital has the potential to advance theory and to yield new insights and understandings of students’ educational opportunities and experiences. Finally, we provide a discussion of key processes — (mis)recognition, transmission, conversion, and activation/mobilization — to which educational researchers need to pay closer attention when attempting to understand the attainment of goals in under-represented students’ lives.

Introduction: Theorizing practices

Contents: Preface. N. Gonzalez, L. Moll, C. Amanti, Introduction. Part I: Theoretical Underpinnings. N. Gonzalez, Beyond Culture: The Hybridity of Funds of Knowledge. C. Velez-Ibanez, J. Greenberg, Formation and Transformation of Funds of Knowledge. L. Moll, C. Amanti, D. Neff, N. Gonzalez, Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms. N. Gonzalez, L. Moll, M.F. Tenery, A. Rivera, P. Rendon, C. Amanti, Funds of Knowledge for Teaching in Latino Households. Part II: Teachers as Researchers. M.F. Tenery, La Visita. C. Amanti, Beyond a Beads and Feathers Approach. M. Hensley, Empowering Parents of Multicultural Backgrounds. P. Sandoval-Taylor, Home Is Where the Heart Is: A Funds of Knowledge-Based Curriculum Module. A. Browning-Aiken, Border-Crossings: Funds of Knowledge Within an Immigrant Household. J. Messing, Social Reconstructions of Schooling: Teacher Evaluations of What They Learned From Participation in the Funds of Knowledge Project. Part III: Translocations: New Contexts, New Directions. M. Brenden, Funds of Knowledge and Team Ethnography: Reciprocal Approaches. P. Buck, P.S. Sylvester, Pre-Service Teachers Enter Urban Communities: Coupling Funds of Knowledge Research and Critical Pedagogy in Teacher Education. C. Mercado, Reflections on the Study of Households in New York City and Long Island: A Different Route, a Common Destination. N. Gonzalez, R. Andrade, M. Civil, L. Moll, Funds of Distributed Knowledge. Part IV: Concluding Commentary. L. Moll, Reflections and Possibilities.

Funds of Identity: A new concept based on the Funds of Knowledge approach

The main purpose of this paper is to articulate a theory of human identity from a Vygotskian perspective. In doing so, we use the term “funds of identity” inspired by the “funds of knowledge” approach. We use the term funds of identity to refer to the historically accumulated, culturally developed, and socially distributed resources that are essential for a person’s self-definition, self-expression, and self-understanding. Funds of knowledge—bodies of knowledge and skills that are essential for the well-being of an entire household—become funds of identity when people actively use them to define themselves. From our point of view, identity is made up of cultural factors such as sociodemographic conditions, social institutions, artifacts, significant others, practices, and activities. Consequently, understanding identity requires an understanding of the funds of practices, beliefs, knowledge, and ideas that people make use of.

Discourse, learning, and schooling: Biliteracy development in classrooms: social dynamics and cultural possibilities

The study of literacy has achieved prominence during the past three decades, including analyses of its social and intellectual consequences (e.g., Goody, 1987; Olson, Torrance, & Hildard, 1985; Street, 1984). Indeed, literacy has become one of the truly interdisciplinary areas of study, involving historians, linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, and educators, among others. Particularly revealing have been studies of peoples ways with literacy, that is, the nature and uses of written language within specific and varied social conditions and practices (e.g., Heath, 1983; Scribner & Cole, 1981). These studies have shown that literacy is not a unitary phenomenon; that it is varied and complex; and that its possible consequences for thinking must be understood in relation to specific, diverse sociocultural practices, that is, to what people do with literacy within their circumstances of life. As Cole and Nicolopoulou (1992) put it, the emphasis of these studies is “on the actual ‘morphology’ of different kinds of literate practice; their analysis requires the investigator to take into account the structural, political, and ideological features of the society in question” (p. 345). In addition, the theoretical emphasis on the “practices” of literacy has brought a fresh perspective to the study of literacy in schools.

Sounding American: The Consequences of New Reforms on English Language Learners.

The authors highlight the omission of English language learners and their unique needs from reports such as that of the U.S. National Reading Panel. Situating their conversation in a sociocultural and socioeconomic context, they discuss how schools can and should help all children.