Activating funds of knowledge via intercultural interaction in undergraduate writing classes

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Sims, Rebekah and Banat, Hadi (2024) Activating funds of knowledge via intercultural interaction in undergraduate writing classes. In: BERA annual conference 2024, 2024-09-08 - 2024-09-12, University of Manchester.

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Abstract

This paper explores how undergraduate HE students engage funds of knowledge during self-reflective writing and intercultural interaction, when navigating new academic, social, and cultural experiences. Educational transitions present challenges for all students, but those from minoritised backgrounds face particular challenges (Bhopal et al, 2020; Scanlon et al 2019). However, these students also have strengths that may remain invisible if not recognised and incorporated: knowledges nurtured by the home cultures. ‘Funds of knowledge’ is an educational construct that documents the competences and knowledges leveraged by underrepresented students and their families (Rios-Aguilar et al, 2011). Funds of knowledge can be incorporated into curricula to promote inclusivity, bridging cultural knowledge and disciplinary learning (Daddow, 2016). Thomson and Hall (2008) also point out that students bring funds of knowledge to the classroom in ways that ‘leak’ into the learning experience, but without intentionality, these enriching opportunities can be thwarted by performative curricula. Thus, intentionally designing learning activities to activate and engage funds of knowledge can strengthen students’ ability to navigate educational experiences. Our project examines how funds of knowledge are activated through autoethnographic and reflective writing as well as intercultural interaction in undergraduate writing classes. Introductory writing classes are commonly required of US undergraduates when they commence university education. As such, these classes are a site of transition -- a place where students start learning how to navigate academic spaces. At ethnically and linguistically diverse institutions, writing classes also bring students with different cultural backgrounds into contact with each other. The interactive nature of writing classes -- and the contested nature of “academic” writing -- means that these classes hold the potential for rigorous engagement with issues of language, culture, identity, and education. Thus, they are a prime space for both intercultural engagement and activating funds of knowledge as a part of facilitating effective transitions to HE. We explore a data set collected at an ethnically and linguistically diverse university in the United States home to many immigrant, international, and first generation students. Our research questions are: How does a literacy narrative genre honour and engage students’ funds of knowledge to build intercultural transitions when joining new learning contexts? How do students in general and multilingual writing classes conceptualise their relationships with English and the additional languages in their repertoire? The data set comes from a writing curriculum wherein students complete reflective pieces as well as investigations into their own cultural heritage. Three writings were collected: a pre-reflection, a literacy narrative, and post-reflection. Additionally, students completed structured cross-cultural interaction with classmates. We have further implemented a standardised measure, the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale (Miville et al 1999), to triangulate findings related to understanding similarity and difference. In the pre-reflection, students examined their language repertoire and their relationship to English as well as the connections between literacies, motion, and mobility. The autoethnographic cultural literacy narrative invited students to investigate the sources of their own various literacies, and what contexts gave rise to these literacies. Finally, the post-reflection promoted cultural interaction through exploration of differences within similarity and similarities within difference. These explorations cultivated self-understanding and other-understanding, both of which are key to intercultural competence development and thriving in HE settings (American Association of Colleges & Universities, 2012). To analyse this data set, we have developed a unique analytical heuristic that expands Tara Yosso’s (2005) work on funds of knowledge. We have identified a set of sub-codes that signal how students engage aspirational, familial, navigational, and linguistic funds of knowledge. We identify a further fund of knowledge: intercultural -- knowledge, attitudes, and skills that support effective interaction in a variety of cultural contexts -- that students operationalise as a part of transitioning to HE settings, and as a part of movement across borders more generally. Fundamentally, our project goes beyond recognising that these funds exist, to examining how, and when, they are drawn upon within the HE setting and adjacent cultural spaces. We notice that when we engage students in intercultural learning, their funds of knowledge come to light, as does their ability to recognise funds of knowledge in other people who are culturally different. This research is significant for those invested in widening access issues within HE, particularly attending to transitions from secondary to tertiary education and between types of tertiary education. Effective transitions should engage students’ home cultures and funds of knowledge, raising students’ awareness of their own knowledges as well as creating educational spaces that welcome and benefit from a variety of cultural knowledges.

ORCID iDs

Sims, Rebekah ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3151-7315 and Banat, Hadi;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)