26 research outputs found
Funds of Knowledge and Early Literacy: A Mixed Methods Study
Get PDFWhen teachers are charged with educating students who are racially, culturally, or economically different from them, they may have little information on the culture and the expectations for family involvement, of their students. This lack of information may lead to perceptions of working-class families, in particular, as socially disorganized and intellectually deficient. Research embodying the theoretical framework of Funds of Knowledge (FoK) attempts to counter this deficit model through its assertion that all families possess extensive bodies of knowledge that have developed through social, historical, political, and economic contexts. The purpose of this study was to carefully examine one Hispanic family’s support of their young children’s early literacy development in the home. Findings indicated that the family possessed extensive FoK, which proved useful not only at home but in the classroom through action research. Additionally, this study led to changes in my own perceptions of families’ experiences and prompted changes in the way I, as an educator, utilized home learning in the classroom. FoK research, in conjunction with action research and autoethnography, is not extensively addressed in literature
From rationalization to reflection: One teacher education law class
Get PDFThis paper describes the struggles of a teacher educator to acknowledge and honor her own liberal bias along with her students’ more conservative perspectives as these emerge in an education law class for preservice teachers. It illustrates the author’s ongoing transition from rationalization to reflection, as she considers both her students’ responses to class assignments on speech and expression rights and end-of-course evaluations, and reflects on the possibility that generational and experiential differences, rather than “resistance,” may be behind students’ reactions. The author concludes that transparency on the part of the teacher educator is critical to allow (re)consideration of our beliefs in more reflective ways.
