Children's funds of knowledge and their real life actvities: two minority ethnic children learning in out-of-school contexts in the UK

In this paper we explore the concept of ‘funds of knowledge’ used by Moll and Greenberg (1990) in the US to recognize and value expertise located within minority ethnic communities and apply it to the out-of-school learning engaged in by two primary school-aged minority ethnic children in the UK. As part of the UK government’s policy on social inclusion attempts have been made to address underachievement of certain groups of minority ethnic pupils. One recommendation to schools has been to draw on communities’, families’ and children’s ‘funds of knowledge’ in order to improve the school experience and achievements of minority ethnic pupils. We provide two case studies of the children’s lives and learning out of school and then consider the implications for educational practice of drawing on these kinds of funds of knowledge. The data are drawn from a wider project, one strand of which had a focus on mathematics, and as such there is a slant towards out-of-school learning relating to mathematics although the examples we discuss are not solely in the area of mathematics. Throughout the paper we reflect on issues associated with researching and writing about diversity in the learning of children in different settings.