Building a socio-educational ecosystem from the community funds of knowledge and identity approach. An illustrative example in Catalonia, Spain

Abstract

This paper aims to illustrate the creation, implementation and impact of an educational project for a socio-educational ecosystem design from the “community funds of knowledge and identity” approach. By socio-educational ecosystem, we mean formal, non-formal and informal agents who co-design, implement and evaluate an educational project by the work carried out by a “study group”, a collaborative social setting between teachers, researches and social actors. This goes beyond the traditional reduction and encapsulation of education as something that primarily takes place within school classrooms led by teachers. To illustrate the approach, a case is presented of an archaeological site that is conceived as a “community fund of knowledge and identity” within an socio-educational ecosystem. Our study shows how the site becomes a mediating resource that promotes connections between people and learning opportunities, generating shared forms of identity. Drawing on research and participant observation, semi-structured individual and group interviews, and focus group to students in the fifth year of primary school, families, teachers, other professionals, and researchers, the educational project is described in terms of its “governance” (how it is organised), the “impact” (what changes and effects are produced in terms of learning and community belonging), and the “sustainability” (factors that enable it to be sustained over time). This example is discussed in the context of socio-educational ecosystems and the emerging research on “community funds of knowledge and identity”