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RESEARCH AND POLICY REVIEW2.4 CONNECTING HOME AND SCHOOL CULTURES22.4 CONNECTINGHOME AND SCHOOLCULTURESParents’ involvement in children’s schoollives and learning is a crucial factor in therelationship between home and school.However to more fully understand therelationship between home and school andthe context and constraints on parents’engagement with children’s learning, weneed to consider how the cultures of homeand school relate to one another. Home is notonly a physical place, but a social constructthat encompasses the family’s routines andstructures. So home-school relationships arenot just about linking one geographic settingwith another, but about negotiating thedifferent social and cultural constructs ofhome and school.Learning at school can be seen as increasinglydisconnected from children’s lives, culturesand learning experiences outside school. Thiscan be especially true for children whose homecultures are particularly different to schoolcultures, including working class familiesand families from some ethnic minoritybackgrounds 41 . If education aims to helpchildren develop and take up responsibilitieswithin their community, and to be perceivedby children as meaningful, then it needs tohave some relevance to children’s lives outsideschool 42 . As well as connecting to children’slives as they experience them, education alsoneeds to connect to children’s aspirations fortheir future lives, and many would argue thateducation therefore also needs to offer childrenhigher and broader aspirations for their futuresthen they bring with them to school 43 . However,if these extended aspirations are completelydisconnected from children’s current lives, theymay be seen as distant and unachievable.This section therefore explores the nature ofthe connections between children’s home andschool cultures in order to provide a biggerpicture of the relative contributions of, andrelationship between home and school.Transitions between home andschool culturesChildren’s transitions from home to schoolinvolve a change in identity from the child athome to the pupil in the classroom. There maybe continuity or discontinuity between thesetwo identities depending on how appropriatechildren’s behaviour from one setting isin another, and the consistency of adults’responses to children’s behaviour. When thereis discontinuity, children face a task of adaptingto the new contexts they are faced with 44 .Particular ways of knowing and learning areembedded in social and cultural practices.When the practices of ‘knowing’ in home andschool are very different, learners’ successfulexperiences of learning at home may notfacilitate learning at school. For example, inAustralia, Aboriginal practices of knowingare more communal, and children can findthemselves told off for ‘cheating’ when helpingeach other in the more individualised learningparadigm of the classroom 45 . However,attempts to teach parents to interact with theirchildren in more ‘school-like’ ways can giverise to conflict and tension that can actuallyreinforce rather than overcome inequalities 46 .2441. Maddock, M (2006). Children’s personal learning agendas at home. Cambridge Journal of Education, 36,2: 153-16942. Article 29 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child specifies that children should experience the kind of education whichhelps them develop and take up responsibilities within the community. See www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf.43. See, for example, Cabinet Office (2008). Aspiration and attainment amongst young people in deprived communities: Analysis anddiscussion paper. Available from: www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/social_exclusion_task_force/short_studies/aspirations.aspx44. Lam, MS and Pollard, A (2006). A conceptual framework for understanding children as agents in the transition from home tokindergarten. Early Years, 26,2: 123-14145. Maddock, M (2006). Children’s personal learning agendas at home. Cambridge Journal of Education, 36,2: 153-16946. Alldred, P, David, M and Edwards, R (2002). Minding the gap: Children and young people negotiating relations between home andschool. In R Edwards (ed), Children, Home and School: Regulation, Autonomy or Connection? London and New York: Routledge: 106-120.
Third spaces and funds of knowledgeRather than attempt to integrate home andschool cultures or encourage homes to adoptschool cultures, third space theories have beenapplied to attempts to create spaces in whichaspects of the two different cultures of schooland home can come into ‘conversation’ withone another 47 . It is hoped that this approachcan make school learning experiences moremeaningful and accessible to children byconnecting them with the cultures and contextschildren are familiar with and interested inoutside school 48 .Third space theories see children as possessing‘funds of knowledge’, acquired throughparticipation in the daily life of their familiesand communities, and essential for everydayfunctioning and wellbeing within thosecommunities. Because different communitieshave different social and cultural practices, theywill give rise to different funds of knowledge.Teachers also draw on the funds of knowledgethey develop through participation in theirown communities and professional practice 49 .Children’s funds of knowledge, developedwithin their families and communities, can bemarginalised within a school discourse. Theidea of ‘third spaces’ describes the merging ofthe informal ‘first space’ of home, communityand peers with the more formal ‘second space’of school or work. Integrating the differentfunds of knowledge from school and home toform a third space that values both discoursescan be seen as helping children successfullynavigate between and build bridges fromthe sometimes marginalised knowledgepractices of children’s homes to the moreconventional academic knowledge of school.This perspective sees children as having accessto multiple funds of knowledge from home andschool that they can draw on in their learning– and that by helping children draw on all theresources at their disposal, they are likely to bemore successful learners.By bringing the different funds of knowledge ofhome and school into ‘conversation’ with oneanother, both home and school knowledges canbe challenged and reshaped, potentially givingrise to new knowledges. Children, as they getolder and develop more independence, can beseen as carving out their own peer culturalspaces between the more settled spaces ofhome and school, for example hanging outtogether outside or online. Digital technologiesin fact may offer opportunities for children tocreate their own virtual third spaces that cantravel between home and school and wherethey can draw on and reshape their funds ofknowledge from both home and school 50 .In a recent study, some young children’semerging conceptions of themselves as readersgenerated at home – as people who enjoybooks, can understand and make meaningfrom a range of texts including pictures,websites and games – were undermined bytheir perception that being a reader in schoolwas about being able to decode printed words.Some children were able to bring togetheraspects of both their home and schoolperceptions of being a reader that reshapedboth their school reading practices and thereading practices of their everyday lives,generating the new knowledge and third spacedescribed above. However, other childrenadopted what they perceived to be the school’sdefinition of being a reader, and relinquishedthe idea that their home reading practices werevalid 51 . These same arguments are likely to alsoapply to children’s conceptions of themselvesas ‘learners’, with educators needing tofacilitate space in school for children’s ownideas of what it is to be a learner to coexist withschool discourses.CHAPTER RESEARCH TITTLE AND POLICY HERE REVIEWCHAPTER 2.4 CONNECTING SUB-TITTLE HOME HERE AND SCHOOL CULTURES2 ?47. Levy, R (2008). ‘Third spaces’ are interesting places: applying ‘third space theory’ to nursery-aged children’s constructions ofthemselves as readers. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 8,1: 43-6648. For two examples of projects that attempt to create such third spaces, see the Home School Knowledge Exchange project atwww.tlrp.org/proj/phase11/phase2e.html49. For more discussion of the concept of Funds of Knowledge see Moll, L, and Greenberg, J (1990). Creating zones of possibilities:Combining social contexts for instruction. In L Moll, Vygotsky and Education, 319-348. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. For itsapplication in a UK educational context see M Hughes and A Pollard (eds) (2006). Educational Review (Special Issue on the Home-School Knowledge Exchange Project), 58,4: 385-39550. For more discussion on third spaces, particularly with reference to literacy practices of home and school see Moje, EB,Ciechanowski, KM, Kramer, K, Ellis, L, Carrillo, R, Collazo, T et al (2004). Working toward third space in content area literacy: anexamination of everyday funds of knowledge and discourse. Reading Research Quarterly, 39,1: 38-70. Retrieved fromwww.jstor.org/stable/4151759. In UK Family Learning context, Pahl, K, and Kelly, S (2005). Family literacy as a third space betweenhome and school: some case studies of practice. Literacy, 39,2: 91-651. Levy, R (2008). ‘Third spaces’ are interesting places: applying ‘third space theory’ to nursery-aged children’s constructions ofthemselves as readers. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 8,1: 43-6625
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