Building communities: Teachers researching literacy lives

Abstract

In the light of wide recognition that the traffic between home and school is traditionally one-way, this article reports on a deliberately counter-cultural project that involved teachers in researching children’s everyday literacy practices and ‘funds of knowledge’ (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) over a year. Eighteen primary teachers from 10 schools in five local authorities in England were involved; this article focuses on two of the practitioners’ experiences. Drawing on a wide range of data, it is argued that the project challenged teachers’ perceptions and beliefs about children and families, prompting dispositional shifts and new understandings of difference and diversity. However, creating responsive curricula that connected to the lived social realities of the children represented a considerable professional challenge. The article highlights the affordances of collaborative research partnerships, and argues that considerable time, space and support is needed in order for teachers to appreciate and understand children’s and families’ funds of knowledge and blur the boundaries between home and school.