Intersections of Mother Tongue-Based Instruction, Funds of Knowledge, Identity, and Social Capital in an Ugandan Pre-School Classroom

ABSTRACT

This article reports on a collaborative action research project, conducted in a pre-primary school in South Central Uganda, which explores the opportunities for children to draw upon and integrate their home and community-based knowledge and experiences through mother tongue (MT) instruction and resources. We use the funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992), language and identity (Norton, 2000, 2013), and social capital (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977) theoretical perspectives to consider how MT pedagogical approaches that acknowledge the value of children’s MT and prior life experiences support young children’s learning and the development of their identities as learners. Findings indicate MT-based instruction engaged and supported the cultivation of children’s funds of knowledge, identity, and social capital related to home and community relationships, resources and practices, classroom learning communities, bilingual development, and agency and empowerment.

KEYWORDS:

• Funds of knowledge
• language and identity
• mother tongue
• pre-primary school
• social capital
• Uganda

Notes

1. Although the majority of children in Uganda, particularly in poor, rural contexts, have one of the 41 Indigenous languages as their MT, there are many children who are raised in households where English is the MT, or where family members are bi/multilingual, and children are proficient in English as well as one or more Indigenous languages.

2. However, in urban school contexts with a high degree of linguistic heterogeneity, English is to be the LOI.

3. Pseudonyms are used for the location and participants to protect their anonymity.

4. Throughout the discussion of this study, Luganda and MT will be used interchangeably.