Follow the leader: attending to the curriculum making potential of preschoolers

ABSTRACT

This research focused on making visible children’s funds of identity [Esteban-Guitart, M., & Moll, L. (2014). Funds of identity: A new concept based on the funds of knowledge approach. Culture & Psychology, 20(1), 31–48] and incorporating these resources into an inquiry-oriented, play-based, preschool curriculum. Participants in this collaborative action research included 4 co-investigators, 36 children aged 3–5 from diverse backgrounds, and 8 focal children and their parents/guardians. Data were gathered through observations, digital photographs, and photo-elicitation interviews. Through visual narratives and conversations guided by the children, the research team gained greater insight into children’s interests and the knowledge they bring with them from home into school. We came to recognize that our perspectives of the children’s interests and knowledge were limited by our inability to see their curriculum making potential and by our hesitation to offer the curriculum the children desire.

KEYWORDS:

• Funds of identity
• play
• diversity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Monica Miller Marsh is Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education and Director of the Child Development Center at Kent State University. Her areas of interest include family diversity, the formation of teacher and student identities, and curriculum development. She is co-founder (with Dr Tammy Turner-Vorbeck) of the Family Diversity Education Council and the Journal of Family Diversity in Education.

Ilfa Zhulamanova is a graduate student pursuing her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at Kent State University in Ohio. Her research focuses on play and learning in early childhood. She studied the foundations of Waldorf/Steiner pedagogy and was a founder of a Waldorf kindergarten in her home country, Kyrgyzstan.