Introduction: my own funds of identity; 1. Learning in a mobile-centric society; 2. From funds of knowledge to funds of identity; 3. How to detect funds of identity; 4. How to use students' funds of identity pedagogically; Final remarks: identities at the heart of education.
This book suggests a strategy to put students' practices, cultures, and identities in the center of a twenty-first-century education.
Moisès Esteban-Guitart is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Girona. He is the editor of the journal Papeles de Trabajo sobre Cultura, Educación y Desarrollo Humano (Working Papers on Culture, Education and Human Development). His research activity spans the fields of cultural psychology and educational research, and he has published widely on issues of identity, cultural diversity, and education.
'This is an audacious and vibrant book. Adapting a
funds-of-knowledge approach to study identity, it contributes a
dynamic, processual understanding of identity in context, not as
some sort of stable or inherent trait, but as part of a human
subjectivity that mediates and is in turn mediated by sociocultural
practices of all kinds. It thus views identity, as also informed by
a Vygotskian perspective, as a dialectical process, as both tool
and outcome, one could say, and as central to all forms of semiotic
mediation, thereby becoming a leading factor in human development
and education, especially in today's more 'liquid' or 'networked'
society.' Luis C. Moll, Professor Emeritus, University of
Arizona
'Esteban-Guitart has written a bold and inspiring book of great
importance to the field of learning in and out of school. An
innovative approach is developed using the concept 'funds of
identity' as an ecological approach to learning with unique
educational experiences from Catalonia. I strongly recommend this
book for people interested in core issues of education in our
contemporary mobile-centric society and ways of understanding
today's learners navigating in complex socio-technical networks.'
Ola Erstad, Universitetet i Oslo
'Moisès Esteban-Guitart presents a timely contribution to
socio-cultural theorization on learning and human development. His
framework is especially powerful as it provides researchers and
educators with methodological and analytical tools to examine and
transform contemporary educational practices.' David Poveda,
Professor Titular, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
'Connecting knowledge, minds and communities: Esteban-Guitart
integrates funds of knowledge with learning motivations such as
interests to elucidate ways funds of identity form through lived
experiences in a world with increasingly intercultural connections.
An insightful book that moves the education field forward in
important theoretical, methodological and applied ways:
participatory learning in families, communities and cultures is
central to life in a 'mobile-centric' world and can be utilised by
teachers to enhance educational processes and outcomes.' Helen
Hedges, Associate Professor and Head of School, Faculty of
Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland
'In this book, Esteban-Guitart answers a tricky question in our
contemporary hyper-complex globalized world: why would studying
identity be educationally useful and relevant? This book stems from
contemporary cultural psychology and represents an attempt to
reflect upon the educational contexts as characterized by the
inherent unity of both situatedness and generalizability in their
relationship with other life spaces or micro-cultures. Funds of
Identity offers a complementary understanding of the learning
processes overcoming the classical dichotomy of formal-informal
education.' Pina Marsico, University of Salerno. Italy
'Funds of Identity explores an important emerging concept in
education: that the diversity of who learners are is an incredible
resource for learning. Esteban-Guitart explores how educators and
researchers can discover ways to move beyond deficit perspectives
of learners to promote equity in educational settings.' William
Penuel, University of Colorado
'… an important milestone in cultural psychology as applied to
education. Its main value is in the emphasis on the unity of
teaching/learning experiences that cross the artificial 'formal'
and 'informal' education boundaries in the social context of our
mobile-centered participatory societies of the twenty-first
century. I think it is a must read for educational researchers and
practitioners, opening for them new alleys for how to make sense of
the full social complexity of any educational effort.
Esteban-Guitart builds his unique concept funds of identity on the
grounds of its parent - funds of knowledge - notion. … The book
includes a number of innovative qualitative methods for studying
the particulars of the funds of identity and is therefore
recommended also as an example of how new phenomena-appropriate
methods can be developed in psychology.' Jaan Valsiner, Niels Bohr
Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg Universitet, Denmark
'For schools to engage actual learners - especially from less
powerful social positions - they must give educational value to
cultural resources that carry meaning in the learners' family and
community lives. This is a core premise of the Funds of Knowledge
approach to curriculum development. In Funds of Identity, Moisès
Esteban-Guitart extends this approach conceptually,
methodologically and practically, with exciting effect. Exploring
the educational significance of engaging learners' identity-forming
processes, across a complex ecology of social spaces,
Esteban-Guitart amplifies how young people are not mere
inter-generational inheritors of cultural artefacts, who thereby
reproduce the past in new guises. Rather, they are new-generational
makers of cultural tools for alternative social futures. Funds of
Identity thus contributes richly to the project of
social-educational justice.' Lew Zipin, Victoria University,
Melbourne
'Reading this book was one of those rare light-bulb moments: it put
into words what I had been thinking for many years but had been
struggling to articulate.' Adam Poole, Educational Review
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