First Years, Funds of Knowledge and Third Spaces

Abstract

Universities that engage with diversity embrace the demographic of their broader communities and ensure that their first-year programs cater for diverse student populations (Rissman, Carrington & Bland, 2013). They redress "marginalization of certain forms of knowledge and ways of knowing" (Gale & Parker, 2014, p.747). Students' cultural knowledge and the resources that they bring to their formal education are of great importance to their sense of belonging, an important aspect of the first year experience (Barton & Tan, 2009; Gonzalez & Moll, 2001; Hogg, 2011; Esteban-Guitart & Moll, 2014; Kift, Nelson & Clarke, 2010; Rios-Aguilar et al., 2011). Funds Of Knowledge (FoK) Can be described as social and cultural capital (Rios-Aguilar et al., 2011) In the form of the wide and varied resources that are possessed by adult learners. They are a useful model for research into the understandings and practices that adult learners bring to the classroom (Oughton, 2010).