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The article proposes and illustrates a methodological framework that aligns with the action-research models and utopian methodology in particular, although it represents a more substantial leap forward, especially regarding the distributed nature of decision making in the different processes of research/intervention, and its multiple and systematic nature (linking theory, practice and politics). It is developed through four main phases: i) collective identification of the needs and the object of the study, ii) expansive co-design of the action-research, iii) dynamic and multiagency implementation, and iv) critical and participatory reflexive evaluation. It is examined more specifically how the phases proposed here can be illustrated by an ongoing project called 360Education Alliance ("Aliança Educació 360") conducted in the context of Catalonia, Spain. It consists of a partnership presented in January, 2018, that currently involves more than 300 entities for promoting a community vision of education based on improving equity and social justice. Some opportunities deriving from this methodology are mentioned in the conclusion, emphasizing the transversal role of self-criticism as permanent inquiry of multiple agents involved in the process, including the participants themselves.

This theoretical article explores the concept of community funds of knowledge and identity to complement the two related notions of funds of knowledge (focused on the knowledge and skills of families) and funds of identity (students' practices and lived experiences). By "community funds of knowledge and identity," we mean the historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge, skills, and personal/social identifications embedded in particular geographical spaces, social institutions, or any educational resource available in any community.

Background: This article explores the methodological foundations for a utopian methodology as a form of Design-Based Intervention Research (DBR) that can guide the process of envisioning, implementing, sustaining, and critically evaluating the more radical forms of educational activity systems that prefigure the utopian goal of an equitable and humane education system. Methods: We examine, guided by a utopian methodology lens, the examples from three national traditions for designing and implementing equitable educational activities. Each illuminates critical phases in the process of conducting DBR, combining social theory and cultural-historical activity theory. Findings: We propose methodological principles for a utopian methodology as a form of DBR: (a) Some conditions for sustaining and re-generating the utopian goal should be explicitly considered; (b) Examine the recurring challenges to viability and achievability of the utopian design in its learning ecology that emerge for observation over multiple times scales; (c) Self-critique and collaborative re-design for a new iteration. Contribution: Taken as an ensemble, the cases analyzed here illustrate the broad usefulness of the utopian methodology that we propose in order to maintain the light of the utopian goal and challenge domestication process embedded in any process of change and transformation of the status quo.

Learning happens through participation in formal community events and informal community activities. However, learning activities that take place in and out of school are often not mutually recognised. "Funds of knowledge" projects foster new ways of exchanging learning experiences in and out of school. "Funds of identity" can be uncovered by teachers through the collection of artefacts, interests and practices that are valuable to children. Specifically, videos, photographs, self-portraits, bilingual texts, diaries or "shoeboxes of significant items" are some of the resources that can be used to make a learner's funds of identity more visible and tangible in the classroom. The main aim of this paper is to illustrate a number of resources and strategies that help to identify and mobilise funds of identity. These funds of identity are integral for educators in order to develop meaningful and contextualised lessons.

This article explores the idea that learning can be best understood as a life project. This entails recognition that socio-experiential (being), cognitive (knowing) and behavioural (doing) dimension are crucial, and that the future is of central importance – more than the past – in teaching and learning processes. Based on the concepts of "affinity space" and "activity ecology", it is also suggested that teaching and learning processes are across settings and time. This proposition is illustrated through two worked examples linked to biographical processes of identity construction in the field of art and the acquisition of English as a foreign language. The article concludes considering the need to recontextualize the school within the perspective outlined here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the notion of funds of identity was first proposed, a large number of related works have followed, most of which have been reviewed recently by Hogg and Volman (2020). This special issue is a step forward both in the conceptualization of the construct, and in its educational applications. Three developments in particular are considered. The first deals with the directive and prospective nature of funds of identity, linked to the higher psychological processes, such as imagination, agency or creativity. Second, there is the idea of establishing identity work as a curricular subject in itself, and as a vehicle for the critical understanding/transformation of oneself and of one's surrounding reality. Third, the range of methodological resources and educational practices that are used to identify, generate and exploit funds of identity is increasingly. The notion of funds of identity is furthermore re-conceptualized in two ways: first as an ongoing, subjective, social and cultural, generative-directive process, grounded in our embodied experience of the world and in social interactions, and second, as symbolic resources that are used to give meaning to oneself and help to project, plan and organize life projects, and a critical understanding of reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of the study group in the funds of knowledge approach as implemented in a public school located in Catalonia, Spain. In particular, we describe the funds of knowledge uncovered during home visits to the families of 5 students selected by the teachers and the process by which the teachers developed educational activities using some of these funds of knowledge. We argue that the study group can be seen as a community of practice and as a mediational structure between students’ households and the school—a process referred to here as an “intercontextual mediation.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to address the teaching and learning processes in schools from a Vygotskian perspective based on the notion of identity artefacts (IAs) which, for our purposes, consist of documents created by the learners about themselves, in which they try to capture all the things that make sense and are meaningful to them and which, subsequently, can be used by teachers to work on curricular and pedagogical content. We conceptualise the notion of the identity artefact from the broader notions of mediation and cultural artefacts. We also provide a critical analysis of some examples of IAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the features associated with schooling and formal education is their decontextualized nature, a characteristic that has been related to the advancement of logical abstract thinking. The aim of this study was to compare and contrast self-portraits through the graphical representations and verbal explanations made by young indigenous people from the Altos de Chiapas with different educational levels ranging from primary school to university. Participants were of the same age. The results show the abstract nature (as opposed to the concrete character) of some of the self-portraits made by the group of university students and the prevalence of individual aspects (rather than social contextual factors) especially within this same group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the notion of culturally sustaining pedagogy has been suggested to refer to different educational practices that share the will to recognize, maintain and develop cultural diversity in the classroom. The study presented here describes two empirical examples that illustrate teaching and learning processes in which the curriculum is channeled through the references of meaning, life events and experiences of students and their families. In the first example, curriculum—natural science and language—was linked with the experience of some families with the use of peanuts. In the second example, a discussion was generated around students' cultural identities. These examples are based on funds of knowledge and funds of identity participatory research-action projects, and are the result of broader projects carried out in two specific educational contexts in Catalonia (Spain, Europe), a region characterized by a considerable increase in diversity and geographical heterogeneity in recent decades. These empirical cases are discussed within the framework of the development of inclusive pedagogies which, in addition to recognizing the living cultures and practices of students, allow these cultural references to be maintained and sustained, and encourage the construction of hybrid and transcultural identities in which ways of being and understanding life shared by the family culture and/or culture of origin are intertwined with the hegemonic culture and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]