Abstract
Many scholars have found the theoretical, methodological and pedagogical legacy of Luis Moll’s concept of Funds of Knowledge (FK) valuable. In our collaborative research with teachers in early childhood education, we have applied FK to address the power imbalance that can exist between families and teachers. Our research built upon the work of Moll and his colleagues to highlight the importance of teachers finding ways to learn about children’s lives and sustaining reciprocal relationships with families. Focusing on the centrality of children’s interests to curriculum-making in early childhood, we have explored and exemplified how FK can enable teachers to develop deeper understandings of interests being embedded within children’s diverse life experiences. Reporting on research from opposite sides of the globe, we also address how different curricular policy contexts for early childhood education create possibilities and challenges for teachers to enact an FK approach in their practice with children and families.
‘No one would imagine that the creation of new knowledge could begin with experience or everyday life.’ (Young, 2010, p. 29)
Young’s quote provokes thought about what kind of knowledge is valued for young children’s learning: a contentious matter for education policy globally. Sociocultural theories explain ways that children participate and learn while engaged in diverse family, community and cultural activities and practices (e.g., Rogoff, 2003; Rogoff et al., 2016, 2018). For almost fifty years, educational research has explored culturally sensitive, equitable approaches and constructs to guide the education of children from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. Luis Moll’s substantive work on Funds of Knowledge (FK), undertaken with a range of colleagues (e.g., González et al., 2005; Moll et al., 1992,) offers empirical validation for the scholarship begun in the field of anthropology (Vélez-Ibáñez and Greenberg, 1992). FK has become a leader in this field, with applications worldwide. In contrast with Young’s view, aligned with the views of Rogoff and Vygotsky (1978) on everyday concepts, Moll’s work values children’s experience of everyday life, viewing this as a springboard for creating new knowledge.
The concept of FK responds to Young’s provocation in profound ways. Regardless of social and economic circumstances, the ‘concept of funds of knowledge [. . .] is based on a simple premise: People are competent, they have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge’ (González et al., 2005, p. ix, italics in original). Teachers and researchers who engage with FK challenge the neoliberal and deficit discourses in education that portray certain families as lacking or deficient; rather, they seek to recognize and value the knowledge and experience of everyday life. Teachers draw on this knowledge and experience to provide equitable, inclusive and meaningful curriculum that connects children’s everyday knowledge with academic knowledge, rather than academic knowledge being a decontextualized starting point for education.
Our research has applied and extended the concept of FK to provide a conceptual framework for understanding and responding to children’s interests in early childhood education (ECE). ECE in our contexts, England and Aotearoa-New Zealand, still suffers from ongoing preconceptions about its place and purpose in children’s lives, as well as entrenched surface-level child-centred philosophies and policies that do not value teacher knowledge and qualifications. We explore these matters shortly. In addition, the curriculum policy document in each country provides a mirror that reflects political and societal values regarding the purpose of ECE and how children and their families are viewed.
Using FK in our various research projects has proved transformational for teacher understanding and practice. In particular, using FK has addressed what is often described as a power imbalance between teachers and families and a divide between theory and practice in education, through FK being valued by teachers as a framing for deeper understanding of children’s interests. In this paper, we describe how we have applied and benefitted from FK, first in the methodology section and then in a discussion of selected findings from each context.
We conclude our contribution by arguing that everyday life experiences can expand rather than limit curriculum. This position contrasts with Young’s claim and its underpinning construction of curriculum that privileges factual knowledge over experiential modes of learning (Wrigley, 2018). The enduring legacy and value of Moll’s work lies in the transformational lens it provides teachers for viewing families’ everyday knowledge and experience, and in how this can be used as a springboard for learning in ECE. It also offers a pragmatic and community-focused way forward for ECE by providing a theory-informed model for inclusive curriculum-making centred upon reciprocal partnerships between children, families, communities and teachers.
FK, children’s interests and the ECE curriculum
ECE arose historically for two main purposes. First, there was an economic rationale by which young children of working parents could be cared for during the day. In this way, ECE was viewed as holistic — addressing health, nutrition, care and education. The second rationale was a response to concerns primary teachers had that some children had difficulty settling into formal schooling, so required preparation (see May, 2013; Nutbrown & Clough, 2014). Both rationales informed the development of largely play-based provision in which children could choose from a variety of activities, along with routines like group time, meals and rest to provide some daily structure. ECE in this way was described as child-centred due to the focus on self-selected play and children’s health needs.
These key ideas of child-centredness and of children and families requiring preparation for school have affected ECE historically and currently through creating rhetoric, tensions and limitations about, and on, the knowledge and experiences of teachers, families and children. Power relationships between parents and teachers, alongside ways to address the complexity of these relationships, are an important topic researched internationally in an effort to locate theory and practice for ECE (e.g., see Hujala et al., 2009; Rodriguez, 2013).
Similarly, our research seeks to theoretically inform contemporary ECE. A core belief in ECE is that children learn most effectively when the curriculum reflects and responds to their interests. Yet, adults’ understandings of these interests, informed by child-centredness, have historically been associated with developmental psychology theory (Renninger & Hidi, 2016) and interpreted as children’s choices of activities (e.g., Cremin & Slatter, 2004), perpetuating the low-level connection between play and choice as interest. In our commitment to young children’s learning sited in both their families and their ECE settings, we have worked to locate framings for children’s interests — the focal topic of our research agendas — that are deeper interpretations of traditional child-centred views of children’s interests and responsive to everyday life experience present in, and valued by, families (see Chesworth & Hedges, 2023). To this end, we have used sociocultural theory as a framework to view children as competent learners who bring valuable knowledge gained in their families and communities that may be invisible to teachers in educational settings. These experiences can generate new interests and experiences in educational settings that promote children’s sense of belonging and value their families, communities and cultures, provided that the environment recognizes and provides opportunities for them to be expressed.
One framing that has resonated with teachers in our projects is FK. FK needs no explanation in this article since it is well covered elsewhere (see González et al., 2005, and articles in this issue). FK provides a way to move towards equity and inclusion through addressing deficit views of families and their diverse everyday experiences that become sources of interest for children. In our research, FK has become a way for teachers to become open to, and view positively, the family knowledge and practices that influence young children’s interests. This includes some projects adopting (and adapting) the home visits method from the original FK study to assist teachers to rethink assumptions about families.
We therefore argue that using FK in ECE curriculum as a lens to support teacher understanding of diverse children and families has the potential to transform ECE and enable collaborative partnerships with families, communities and cultures. FK arose as a way to promote social justice and equity (see Esteban-Guitart, 2024), so it aligns with an exploration of equity, diversity and inclusion in ECE. Accordingly, we promote a shift from child-centredness as a foundation for ECE to family-and-community-centred ECE. FK can help teachers to think differently about children and families and bridge home and centre practices. We show some ways in which FK fosters deeper understandings of children’s interests through our research, as we illustrate shortly. Further, in locating and advocating for a theory that is meaningful to teachers, and that they want to understand and apply, we have been encouraged as researchers to engage closely with teachers in our research projects. Before that, however, we take time to describe the two very different contexts we research in.
Our contexts
ECE is a variable, ambiguous term internationally, but generally understood as encompassing education for children aged birth to eight years, crossing ECE and junior primary (reception) settings. This leads to some lack of clarity in how ECE is positioned in policy frameworks, since policy seeks to be responsive to the dual purposes of ECE outlined earlier.
Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017) is the bicultural early childhood curriculum document to be used by all ECE settings in Aotearoa-New Zealand (NZ) for children aged birth to five years, prior to formal schooling, where a different curriculum policy is followed. Nevertheless, some schools blend Te Whāriki with the school curriculum in at least the first year of schooling to ease children’s transition.
In Māori, the indigenous language, a whāriki is a mat for all to stand on. While a commitment to Māori as the indigenous language and culture underpins the curriculum, the mat includes spaces for all children, valuing diversity and inclusion.
Te Whāriki is an inclusive curriculum – a curriculum for all children. Inclusion encompasses gender and ethnicity, diversity of ability and learning needs, family structure and values, socio-economic status and religion. (p. 14)
As such, then, the policy document has ambitious aspirations for equity and inclusion in an increasingly diverse society. This has implications for teacher knowledge and enactment of curriculum. The document describes curriculum as providing ‘a framework of principles, strands, goals and learning outcomes . . . [as] a basis for each setting to weave a local curriculum that reflects its own distinctive character and values’ (p. 7).
The four principles foundational to Te Whāriki are: empowerment, partnerships with families and communities, relationships and holistic development. The strands that weave the curriculum with the principles are well-being, belonging, contribution, communication and exploration. An example of a goal for belonging is that ‘children experience an environment where connecting links with the family and the wider world are affirmed and extended’ (p. 24). The learning outcome related to this goal is that over time, and with encouragement and support, children will make ‘connections between people, places and things in their world’ (p. 24).
In these ways, FK as a concept could be seen to appreciate and respect the substance and intentions of Te Whāriki. Similarly, curriculum planning could highlight FK as a key contributor through the statement that ‘planning involves deliberate decision making about the priorities for learning that have been identified by the [teachers], parents, whānau [families] and community of the ECE service’ (p. 65). Children’s interests are noted as one source of planning: ‘[Children’s] interests, enthusiasms, preferences, temperaments and abilities provide the starting point for day-to-day planning’ (p. 40). Later, this is followed up with ‘[Teachers] plan experiences, resources, events and longer-term investigations that build on and extend children’s interests’ (p. 50).
In England, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (Department for Education, 2024) is the statutory framework that sets out the standards for learning, development and care for children from birth to five. In contrast to Te Whāriki, the EYFS pays only cursory attention to equity and inclusion, stating the importance of ‘Equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included and supported’ (Department for Education, 2024, p. 7) and a commitment to ensuring that ‘every child makes good progress, and no child gets left behind’ (p.7). Children’s interests receive similarly fleeting attention in the framework: ‘children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and help them to build their learning over time’ (Department for Education, 2024, p. 7).
These statements indicate an at best superficial regard for affirming and connecting with children’s diverse lived experiences and family contexts. Indeed, in recent years, the wider policy context for education in England has been informed by an explicit narrative that a ‘curriculum based on relevance to pupils is to deny them an introduction to the “best” that has been thought and said’ (Gibb, former Minister of State for Education, 2021, np). This stance has appropriated Young et al.’s (2014) ideas about ‘powerful knowledge’ to drive changes to the 5–16 National Curriculum and position core, propositional knowledge as the remedy to educational inequality. In direct contrast to FK, English policy pathologizes children and families by locating the source of the so-called ‘gap’ with the learner rather than within the societal issues and policies that shape the education system (Angus, 2009). This rhetoric has also shaped national priorities for ECE, with a former Chief Inspector for the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) stating:
Good early years education [. . .] levels the way for those children whose journey is a bit steeper, a bit more difficult. Those whose experiences at home are a bit more limited. And here’s where cultural capital is so important. By this, we simply mean the essential knowledge, those standard reference points, that we want all children to have. (Spielman, 2019, np)
Central to this narrative is a problematic assumption noted earlier that some children start school with a deficit of intellectual capital as a result of knowledge impoverishment and limited resources in households. Consequently, educational ideology sustains ‘pedagogies of poverty’ (Burnett et al., 2020, p. 112) that privilege particular forms, sources and expressions of knowledge. This is why it is vitally important that teachers of young children in England have opportunities for critical dialogue and access to alternative ways of understanding diversity and equity. The concept of FK is central to such dialogue because it provides a counter to deficit narratives of children and families with diverse linguistic, social and cultural heritages.
Yet, ECE internationally has a chequered history of policies that support high-quality or inclusive ECE. Funding for key aspects of provision such as teacher knowledge and qualifications that would enable in-depth understandings of children’s interests in relation to valuing their families and communities, along with group sizes and teacher–child ratios that promote sustained teaching interactions, are a low priority for most governments. For example, significantly, neither England nor NZ requires early childhood services to be fully staffed by qualified teachers. Instead, policy documents use various nomenclature such as educators, kaiako, adults, practitioners and childminders. This nomenclature effectively devalues the professional knowledge and curricular decision-making necessary for educating young children in ways that connect to their interests, their families and cultures and their future formal schooling. 1
In addition, contributing to a long-standing divide between theory and practice, there is no reference to research in the curricular policy documents for either England or NZ. In NZ, footnotes recognizing the research basis for Te Whāriki were not included in either the original 1996 or updated 2017 document. The EYFS has ostensibly been informed by government-funded reviews and research. However, the use of findings arising from these sources to inform policy change has been critiqued as selective (Wood, 2020). This oversight risks teachers being unable to locate theory and research to inform their practice and decision-making.
For these reasons, locating and advocating for a theory that resonates with policy, and is meaningful to teachers in that they want to understand and apply it, has encouraged us as researchers to engage closely with teachers in our research projects.
Methodology
The original FK project partnered academic and teacher-researchers. In our ‘close-to-practice’ (Wyse et al., 2018) research, relationships between teachers and us as researchers have taken different forms depending on the nature of each project and their funding source. While the academic researcher has taken overall project responsibility and ensured ethical processes were implemented and prioritized, sometimes teachers were participants and sometimes co-researchers. Whilst there have been differences in research design and methodology, all our projects have been informed by collaborative approaches in which all participants’ contributions are valued sources of knowledge and there is clarity and agreement regarding the terms of participation. Details of methodology, research design and methods are available in previous publications that report specific projects (see, e.g., Chesworth, 2018; Chesworth et al., 2022; Hedges & Cooper, 2016; Hedges et al., 2011). Informed by close-to-practice values and the ethical principle of beneficence, teachers gave their consent for themselves and their settings to be named in research outputs. The children and families included in this paper are referred to using a mix of real names and pseudonyms, depending on a range of considerations including individual consent and family circumstances.
Each of the projects took place in schools or early childhood centres with culturally diverse and multilingual children, families and teachers. We used a range of different methods and approaches, yet the projects were united in foregrounding the use of FK to inform reflective dialogues between families, teachers and university-based researchers. In all projects, whether it was an original framing or not, FK proved to be powerful as a theoretical concept, a methodology, and in improving curriculum and pedagogy. In short, and as exemplified in the vignettes that follow, FK provided insights into children and families that transformed teacher understanding and practice.
The transformative power of FK: stories of children, families and teachers
Here we offer four stories from our projects. We do not suggest that any generalized application of these ideas is feasible per se (see Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003). Rather, the stories of individual children, parents and teachers illustrate the transformative power of FK in enhancing teacher understanding, reflection and practice, inviting others to consider its relevance in their own contexts.
Zoe’s story
Home visiting, and teacher knowledge and reflection, as critical to insights about children’s interests and provision of curriculum, is shown in the story of Zoe from Helen’s project in Auckland, NZ (Hedges, 2022; Lovatt et al., 2017). This story also illustrates that FK are so embedded in family knowledge and practice that parents do not consider them significant enough to articulate as part of children’s experiences and everyday life. Teacher knowledge of the concept of FK enabled teachers to observe carefully during visits, ask insightful questions and locate parent expertise. In turn, this enabled them to make connections with children’s interests, understand children’s choices of play experiences at the centre and subsequently enrich curricular provision and conceptual language used in related interactions with children.
Zoe, aged 3–5 during the project fieldwork, had English, Irish and Hungarian heritages. During the home visit, occurring when Zoe was aged three years and nine months, teacher-researchers Trish and Daniel noticed a 1,000-piece puzzle that Zoe’s mother said she and Zoe were completing together. Daniel commented that he had noticed Zoe hammering coloured shapes into a pattern on a board at the centre. Zoe’s mother replied that this play experience involved two things Zoe enjoyed: hammering and making sense of patterns. Trish and Daniel then asked Zoe’s mother if she and Zoe’s father enjoyed home maintenance tasks and involved Zoe in these. Zoe’s mother laughed and said no.
However, later on, Daniel revisited the topic of home maintenance. He pointed out that Zoe’s mother said she had hung the curtains in Zoe’s bedroom. He wondered aloud if both parents encouraged a ‘do-it-yourself’ approach in the home and allowed Zoe access to household resources and tools. Subsequently, Zoe’s mother rethought her initial reaction and identified several tasks both parents had completed at home, often with Zoe’s participation. For example, Zoe had helped them paint a driveway fence and put together flat-pack furniture. Zoe’s mother then spoke about Zoe’s grandmother visiting from Ireland, describing her as a practical person who undertook a lot of work around the house with Zoe’s eager observation and participation.
The dialogue that occurred between Zoe’s family and teachers led to deeper insights into Zoe’s play interests in the centre and how these connected with her life experiences. Both teachers later reflected on how their understandings and valuing of children’s FK deepened because of the home visits, enhancing curricular provision and practice with children. Zoe — and other children visited — is also likely to have benefited from the deeper relationships and enhanced communication between her family and teachers, including the understandings and practices generated by a focus on her FK. Further, while teachers already had strong relationships with some families, they noted how much the relationships deepened to the benefit of children.
As noted, this example demonstrated how Funds of Knowledge are implicit in families’ everyday lives and that parents may not be aware of ways family knowledge and practices influence their children until someone else brings them to consciousness. This example also illustrated how engaging with families in their homes about their Funds of Knowledge is valuable in that it may lead to new insights and understandings for both parents and teachers.
Most importantly, it shows that the common power imbalance between teachers and parents can be addressed when teachers take the position of learners about children and their families. This method invites deeper understandings than the common practices of daily informal chatting, inviting multiple families to events and talking while there, or more formalized teacher–parent interviews following the practices of schooling.
Aneni’s story
The second story draws upon Liz’s research (Chesworth et al., 2022) in an early childhood centre located in a city in northern England. In this project, FK was introduced to inform deeper understandings of the breadth and depth of interests that children were exploring during self-initiated play. Over a five-month period, a university-based researcher, Aderonke, worked alongside teachers to observe and document episodes of child-initiated play using written notes, annotated photographs and samples of children’s mark-making and model-making. These methods draw upon a strong tradition of documenting play in ECE and were already established practices in the setting. However, before the project began, documentation was primarily used as an assessment tool to provide evidence of children’s progress towards statutory learning goals. Teachers would periodically share the documentation with parents to exemplify the skills and knowledge they were building whilst attending the centre. This meant that discussions tended to foreground teachers’ professional knowledge of the EYFS framework.
Adopting an FK lens shifted how the setting used documentation, moving teachers’ conversations with families beyond standardized interpretations of play towards a more reciprocal relationship in which parents’ deep knowledge of their children’s everyday experiences was brought into dialogue with teachers’ professional knowledge. Documentation became a springboard for reflective conversations that situated children’s play in the context of their lives at home and in their communities. This enabled teachers to understand the significance of play activity that might otherwise have appeared trivial or inconsequential.
For example, four-year-old Aneni was of Zimbabwean heritage and spoke English and Shona. Aneni’s teacher, Stacey, had noticed his sustained interest in animals and dinosaurs that was made visible through his play with small animal figures, his drawings and his frequent participation in lively play fighting when he would take on the role of an animal.
Engaging in reflective conversations with Aneni’s mum, Jaya, enabled Stacey to build a deeper understanding of his interest in animals. Jaya explained that Aneni and his dad, Joseph, frequently enjoyed watching nature programmes on the National Geographic channel. The pair would usually talk whilst they watched the programmes and Joseph shared ‘lots of interesting facts’ with Aneni during their conversations. Learning from Jaya also enabled Stacey to appreciate that Aneni’s interest in animals was not only driven by his desire to become more knowledgeable; it was also deeply connected with his identity construction and his emotional response to events involving animals and creatures suffering and dying. Jaya recounted recent events in which Aneni had recognized an animal’s vulnerability and demonstrated care and concern; indeed, Aneni had ‘started calling himself a nature protector’. Fuelled by the interest he shared with his dad in nature, Aneni had also become interested in dinosaurs and natural history after watching a television documentary. Jaya’s parents had supported Aneni in pursuing his interest through engaging with different media texts, including documentaries, films and cartoons, websites, apps and digital games that he accessed on his tablet device. Jaya told Stacey that ‘He has an iPad and it’s full of dinosaurs. Now he knows that on Google, you know, that you can speak to it, can’t you? And he will say “dinosaurs” and the things will come up.’
Listening to Jaya enabled Stacey to realize that Aneni’s knowledge and understanding of animals was more comprehensive than she had previously thought. Indeed, at four years old, Aneni already knew far more about dinosaurs and his favourite animals than could be found in a standard preschool reference book. Aneni’s FK were constructed through the interests he shared with his dad and his participation in family literacy practices, of which digital repertoires and popular culture appeared to be particularly important.
These insights presented an interesting provocation for teachers whereby they learned that Aneni — along with other children — was actively participating in a much wider range of literacy practices at home than they had expected. This is an important point because it disrupts the deficit narratives of diversity that inform English policy in which practices commonly associated with middle-class families, such as ‘frequent guided reading with parents’ and ‘rich conversations at the family dinner table’ (Gibb, 2021, np), are positioned as the singular source of valuable knowledge.
Our next two stories, one from each context, bring together the collective power of home visits, documentation, and dialogue and reflection. These illustrate the transformative power of FK for teacher understanding, attitudes, practice and pedagogical documentation to the benefit of children and families.
Keiran’s story
The third story discusses insights from one of Liz’s projects, based in a large Inner London primary school. This is an ongoing collaboration comprising a series of micro-action research projects that focus upon the use of FK to understand, respond to and build upon children’s interests.
One of these projects focused upon home visits. Home visits were already an established practice within the school’s home-school transition policy. When teachers were introduced to the concept of FK, they were inspired to rethink the purposes and content of the visits, shifting the emphasis from talking with families about ‘what to expect from school’ towards establishing a reciprocal partnership between families and teachers. Whilst teachers had always used the home visits to ask about children’s interests, the project enabled them to re-think how they approached this, moving from simply asking about favourite toys towards a renewed emphasis upon listening to and learning from children and their families. Another project focused on the school changing its use of Tapestry©, an online learning journal that is used by many settings in England to document children’s attainment and progression towards statutory Early Learning Goals. As Ross, the head teacher, explained,
The project has changed the way that [we] use Tapestry, the online information sharing software that [we] use. It’s shifted from a one-way communication tool to more of a space for online dialogue and conversation.
Central to this shift was recognition of the potential that online platforms afford for sustaining relationships with parents whose working arrangements meant they were unable to meet with teachers on a regular basis. Transforming Tapestry from a reporting space to make room for listening enabled teachers to learn about, and respond to, children’s interests of which they were previously unaware. As teacher Sarah commented,
Parents have been using Tapestry to tell us what they’ve been doing — for example, that Daddy does a lot of cooking in the evening and things like that. And you think, you know, ‘What does he cook?’ and then you can have a discussion with the child about the meals they make.
Whilst we argue that of themselves online platforms and asynchronous dialogues do not provide the insights afforded by home visits, teachers found that they nevertheless offered an important springboard for deeper understandings of children’s interests that in turn enabled them to engage in conversations that resonated with children’s everyday experiences.
For example, Keiran, aged four, had just started school when the project began. Keiran’s mum had shared some concerns that her daughter was unsettled in her new class. Similarly, Keiran’s teacher, Jess, had observed that Keiran appeared hesitant to interact with her peers or teachers. During the project, Jess started to learn about Keiran’s everyday experiences at home; in particular, Jess noted the family’s shared love of Bollywood films, dancing together, and Keiran’s enjoyment of singing. These insights enabled Jess to recognize and correspondingly attune her interactions with what was of importance to Keiran. She recalled one such instance when Keiran was drawing and quietly singing. Rather than commenting on the drawing, Jess used her insights about the family’s FK to focus her attention on Keiran’s singing. This example was typical of the ways in which teachers made subtle shifts within their interactions to recognize, value and respond to what was of interest to children. Reflecting on the impact of these changes, Jess noted that ‘Keiran has become far more animated. . . You can tell from her body language and her facial expressions how pleased she is when we have conversations relating to her life at home.’
This example is illustrative of how adopting an FK approach became a springboard for changes to everyday practices that strengthened relationships and facilitated children’s participation in classroom communities. Indeed, these are strands that connect each of our stories and that are central to our final story.
Jessica’s story
For our final story we report on Jessica, aged four at the time of the project. In this project of Helen’s, one ECE setting was located in an inner-city area. Teacher-researchers’ experience of home visits to families living in apartments prompted changes to the formerly open-plan environment of their centre. Teachers adapted the layout to smaller spaces with fewer resources to reflect the apartment-style living and shared family spaces. In addition, in keeping with teachers in the original study (Hensley, 2005), they invited parents to contribute to the curriculum, enriching and expanding offerings to children and the associated language and concepts parent expertise and knowledge offered.
To illustrate these changes, teacher Lindy described her learning from the home visits in a written critical reflection:
Jessica has grown up in the inner city, where both her parents have apartments. At [centre] Jessica displayed a fervent flair for the arts. Knowing Jessica’s mother was an artist, one reason we wanted to visit was to see how her art had influenced Jessica’s creativity. We were surprised to find that Jessica’s mother had not done art for a while, mostly due to the confines and constraints of apartment living and rental agreement conditions. They spent most of their waking time out of the apartment as Jessica had to be quiet in the apartment. Although I had always been friendly to Jessica’s mother, it was on my time. I had been frustrated that they often arrived an hour early each day; I now realised that they had nowhere else to go where Jessica could be a child. So whatever time they arrived, I tried to be more welcoming and attentive. [. . .] Presently we are also encouraging Jessica’s mother to share her artistic skills with the children and teachers. Jessica continues to blossom [. . .] with a newfound self-confidence and a deeper trust in her teachers. Since the home visits, I believe we have become more empathetic to families’ individual situations [. . .]. (Cooper et al., 2014, pp. 24–25; Hedges, 2022, pp. 85–86)
The teachers at this centre also reduced sharing documentation of children’s in-centre experiences with parents to build relationships. Instead, they used some of their non-contact time to visit more families to get to know children’s interests at home and make connections to their choices of play experiences at the centre. While their assessment documentation reduced as a result, they noticed it became more meaningful and authentic. The teachers continued home-visiting families after the project concluded, including those who had not participated in the project and who asked when teachers could visit them, too. This illustrated how these changes in relationships and practices were significant to children, families and teachers across the setting.
The power of FK in ECE
These four stories illuminate how FK enabled us to both focus in on and understand children’s interests in a deeper way connected to their diverse families and communities. Contributing to the original intentions and principles of FK, our projects have also enabled teachers to inquire into and reflect on their practice in ways that provided insights into children, families and communities that had not previously occurred. In turn, these reflections and insights enabled teachers to provide strong rationales for changes provided to the curriculum, meaningful connections to conceptual or academic knowledge and deeper and more insightful teacher–child interactions.
A foundational aspect of each of our studies has been strengthened partnerships between families and teachers. True to Moll and his colleagues’ intention for the original FK study, the stories presented here exemplify how an FK approach enabled teachers to build cooperative relationships with families based upon mutual trust and respect. Whilst partnership with parents has long been a stalwart of ECE practice, bringing FK to the forefront involved shifting power dynamics in which listening to and learning from families became core elements of teachers’ pedagogical repertoires.
The stories show some of the ways in which listening to families generated insights into diverse household practices, countering deficit notions of diversity and illuminating the heterogeneity of young children’s lives. Recognizing that all children, no matter their life circumstances, are eager, competent and capable learners is, of course, a premise that was central to Moll’s views on education. In NZ, this foundational principle resonates with Te Whāriki’s aspiration to develop curriculum that connect with children’s families and the wider world. In England, where recent policy has been dominated by framings of teaching as an intervention designed to redress assumed deficits, adopting an FK approach provided a provocation for teachers to think differently about inclusive and equitable practices.
In both countries, listening to families enabled teachers to build deeper and broader understandings of children’s diverse interests, moving from entrenched, narrow interpretations associated with child-centredness towards recognition of how interests were mediated by children’s participation in everyday experiences. In turn, this prompted multiple possibilities for teachers to interact with children in relational ways that created broad, balanced and playful learning experiences that were responsive to children’s diverse family and community practices. In this way, we argue that interpreting children’s interests through an FK lens is a powerful starting point for bringing everyday experiences ‘in harmony with’ academic concepts (van Oers, 2019, p. 132) through planned and spontaneous curricular in which each enriches the other in a dynamic and reciprocal process.
Future research and ways forward
In our context of ECE, in collaborative research with teachers, we have found the theoretical, methodological and pedagogical legacy of Luis Moll’s concept of Funds of Knowledge (FK) transformative. We have found that FK can address the power imbalance that can exist between families and teachers, and value children’s everyday knowledge and experience within curriculum decision-making. Our research shows how an FK approach values academic knowledge but situates this within a holistic understanding of children’s learning and development, anchored in their everyday knowledge.
Our research focused on children’s interests within curriculum-making in early childhood. As per the original project, we have found that home visits and conversations with families enabled teachers to position themselves as learners rather than experts. We also located ways that pedagogical documentation can be used by teachers to learn about children’s lives, and develop and sustain reciprocal relationships with families. We have explored, found and exemplified in this article how FK can enable teachers to develop deeper understandings of interests being embedded within children’s diverse life experiences. Our use of FK as a pivot point for curriculum decision-making promotes a shift towards viewing ECE as family-and-community-centred rather than solely child-centred. In this way, FK enables teachers to think differently about children’s life experiences and meaningful curriculum.
In line with this shift to family-and-community-centred curriculum, while early research into FK focused on family, community and cultural activities and practices, ours and other studies have also acknowledged a broader range of experiences that stimulate interests, including children’s engagement with peers’ interests (Hedges et al., 2011), teachers’ interests (Hedges, 2022), popular culture (Chesworth, 2016; Hedges, 2011) and digital media (Poole, 2017). More recently, connected with interest, FK knowledge that carry particular meaning for children were conceptualized as Funds of Identity (Esteban-Guitart, 2016; Esteban-Guitart & Moll, 2014) and extended into ECE (Hedges, 2021, 2022).
Another development of FK to consider follows from policy and documentation expectations: teachers have multiple demands on their time. We found that one home visit per family, rather than three in the original project, was sufficient to create insights for teachers, and that by visiting in pairs, their dialogue and reflection were enhanced. Whyte and Karabon’s (2016) participant teachers specifically chose a child with a different background to themselves to visit. These teachers initially expressed a mix of anxiety, nervousness and excitement, much like the teachers involved in our collaborative work.
As an innovation to further address any power imbalance, they decided to share aspects of their own personal life stories. Similar again to the teachers in our projects, teachers confronted their assumptions about families, came to understand culture as something represented in everyday lives and became consciously aware of a need to observe and listen carefully rather than dominate talk at the visit. Anxieties were alleviated by the benefits of the visit and a subsequent shift to strengths-based approaches to families.
Future research might look at the role a community or online ‘visit’ might play for families in temporary accommodation or other circumstances that may find them less able to accommodate a home visit. ECE has also yet to resolve that visits may uncover ‘dark’ Funds of Knowledge (Zipin, 2009) and that there may be an ethical and legal obligation to report findings to authorities.
Further, some projects internationally have explored alternate ways for families and children to share their Funds of Knowledge, for example, by filling a shoebox with important items (Hughes & Greenhough, 2006), taking photographs of family and community events to bring to the education setting (Feiler et al., 2006) and creating identity artefacts (Subero et al., 2018). Whether these are as insightful as home visits remains unclear, and we would argue unlikely. Teachers’ thoughtful use of non-contact time, as shown in the example of Jessica where reduced documentation enhanced rather than limited assessment of her learning, is one way to locate the time for visits to occur. As Hensley (2005) noted too, teachers do not have to visit all children and families before their knowledge and attitudes begin to change. Hensley suggested that in visiting even one home, teaching practice might be transformed in ways that benefit all children: for her, assumptions were overturned, new knowledge and insights gained and new-found respect for diverse families developed.
Whilst there is fledgling research that addresses this in the context of primary education (Machancoses et al., 2022), a further aspect of FK application in ECE warranting future attention is the experiences of families. While the purpose and practice of visits is to address power relationships, how do families experience visits? How do parents’ memories of education affect their understandings of the purposes and value of visits, however positively these might be promoted by teachers? Do they themselves also need to make an effort to ‘shatter invisible power boundaries’ (Whyte & Karabon, 2016, p. 218)?
We conclude by returning to Young’s (2010, p. 29) assertion that ‘No one would imagine that the creation of new knowledge could begin with experience or everyday life’. The stories presented in this article exemplify some ways in which our research with teachers has problematized this position by highlighting the value of a reciprocal and dynamic relationship between informal learning at home and new learning experiences in schools and settings. ‘Children, like families, risk structural and political oppression unless closer attention is paid to their life circumstances, what matters for them, and what empowers their participation in families and communities’ (Hedges, 2022, p. 81). In reporting on research from opposite sides of the globe, we have begun to address how different curricular policy contexts for early childhood education create possibilities and challenges for teachers to enact an FK approach in their practice with children and families. We have exemplified how FK can position teachers as researchers engaged in critical, reflective dialogue that challenges entrenched assumptions and advances equity and inclusion through a family-and-community-centred approach. We look forward to other scholars exploring the potentialities and possibilities within their contexts and addressing the different ways forward.