Funds of Identity

This book provides an invaluable resource for researchers who wish to improve education by bridging students, school, family, and community resources. Based in connecting experiences in and out of school, it suggests a strategy to put students' practices, cultures, and identities in the center of a twenty-first-century education.

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Drawing on research conducted mostly in Catalonia (Spain), Moisès Esteban-Guitart outlines a distinct vision of education enhanced by students' identities, which leads to a discussion of the sociocultural factors that shape the processes of learning. He brings these ideas to life by examining traits of a mobile-centric society, the present-day ecology of learning, and his three metaphors of learning (connecting knowledge, connecting minds, and connecting communities). He then suggests a number of basic principles regarding learning for the twenty-first century based on prior literature in the learning sciences. He presents the terms 'funds of identity' and 'meaningful learning experiences', and reviews the funds of knowledge approach and the Vygotskian basis for understanding identity. In the second part of the book, he illustrates a number of strategies for detecting students' funds of identity and their meaningful learning experiences, and describes some practical experiences based on the theoretical framework he adopted.