Dark funds of knowledge, deep funds of pedagogy: exploring boundaries between lifeworlds and schools

Among social justice efforts to make curriculum more engaging and achieving for ‘less advantaged’ learners, the Funds of Knowledge (FoK) approach, as developed by Moll, Gonzalez and associates (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005 Buck, P. and Sylvester, P.S. 2005. “Preservice teachers enter urban communities: Coupling funds of knowledge research and critical pedagogy in teacher education”. In Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities and classrooms, Edited by: Gonzalez, N., Moll, L.C. and Amanti, C. 213–232. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [Google Scholar]; Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992 Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neffe, C. and Gonzalez, N. 1992. Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 32(2): 132–141. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]), offers sound conception and a track-record. The Redesigning Pedagogies in the North project (RPiN) significantly embraced this approach (with some methodological differences). In this paper I first outline how curriculum designed around funds of knowledge with use-value in learners’ lifeworlds challenges the exchange-value power by which competitive academic curriculum selectively privileges cultural capital embodied in elite social-structural positions. I then draw on both RPiN data and FoK literature to examine problematic tendencies to build curriculum around (1) light (i.e. positive) but not dark knowledge from learners’ lifeworlds; and (2) knowledge contents but not ways of knowing and transacting knowledge (funds of pedagogy). In exploring these problem spots, I analyse how systemic boundaries between lifeworlds and schools pose constraints for recontextualising funds of knowledge into school curriculum.