Realigning Funds of Identity with struggle against capital: the contradictory unity of use and exchange value in cultural fields

Abstract

The Funds of Knowledge (FOK) and Funds of Identity (FOI) approaches have demonstrated potential in engaging school curricula with the lived experiences of disadvantaged communities. However, both approaches are not without critique. Our own previous work (drawing on Bourdieu) highlights how FOK/FOI methodologies can result in surfacing exchange value (capital) in the home in ways that re-position some students' access to the school curriculum, while leaving hegemonic practices of schooling unchallenged. In this paper, we propose a new theorization of funds as a cultural commodity of "knowing-in-practice". Following Marx, this commodity is seen as a dialectical unity of use and exchange value -a relation that implies development arising through internal contradictions. We exemplify this empirically through an analysis of the Mexican American Studies (MAS) program. We illustrate how MAS harnessed students' lived experience of oppression into a commodity through a critical curriculum which questions the system (use value) whilst offering exchange value through standardized assessment. This contradictory relation can imply development -for students and the systemif socio-material forces engage favorably. Viewing "funds" as a cultural commodity helps to understand and predict developments arising in practice, and may help identify practical action that exploits such contradictions.

Blueprint for Rural Mathematics

“…Developed in 2010 by Esteban-Guitart, the Funds of Identity approach is driven by an equity agenda (Esteban-Guitart & Moll, 2014a), to overcome deficit thinking around marginalised groups by using ethnographic methods to gather information of a student's sources of identity (Subero et al, 2017). Funds of Identity is underpinned by Vygotsky's social theory of learning (Esteban-Guitart, 2019) and Bourdieu's sociology (Black et al, 2019). Funds of Identity identifies five main sources-or funds-of a student's identity (Esteban-Guitart & Moll, 2014a), that provide a set of resources or "box of tools" to help define oneself (Llopart & Esteban-Guitart, 2017).…”