Participatory research for school transformation from the community funds of knowledge and identity approach.

Abstract

To materialize the inclusion as a right and educational praxis, this article describes the process of designing, implementing and evaluating an educational project for students between 6 and 13 years of age based on the Community Funds of Knowledge and Identity (CFKI) approach. It has been suggested the collaboration among formal, non formal and informal agents as an strategy to implement inclusive educational practices. In doing so, the term of socio-educational ecosystems for inclusion has been suggested recently. However, a lack of research is identified in developing and evaluating the education as a common good in inclusive communitarian settings. In doing so, it is followed the perspective of CFK&I. By community funds of knowledge and identity we mean a legacy, heritage, memory or public-collective inheritance (for example an archaeological site) through which school learning is contextualized and leading to processes of shared identity. At a methodological level, a Design-Based Research approach is developed involving the creation of a driving group including different educational agents (rural school, university), social and community agents (agents of the El Robledal Refuge). The results allow us to empirically illustrate the design and impact of the educational project. Five phases are developed: presentation, creation of the socio-educational ecosystem, codesign process, implementation, and participatory evaluation. A pre and posttest was used to evaluate the impact of the Project on students learning. 15,5% increased from the initial evaluation, identifing some strenghts (i.e., collaborative working, meaningful learning, collective identity making) and limitations (i.e., risk of discontinuity of the project, few time to implement it, lack of economical resources) of the approach according to participants. Finally, the perspective of the CFK&I is discussed in the framework of socio-educational ecosystems for inclusion. It is highlighted three main contributions. First, the role of the study group as a community of practice, appropriating the theoretical and methodological framework. Second, a communitarian scan was conducted to identify collectively a community funds of knowledge and identity. Third, a pre and posttest was implemented to empirically document the impact of the educational project on students’ learning. However, is is identified as a limitation and area for imporvement the need to increase the implementation and development time of the educational project in order to guarantee, in addition to its impact, its consistency and continuity both in its interdisciplinary link with different subjects, as well as throughout the school year. In this sense, incorporating a consolidation phase, for example, linked to consolidating the contents and guaranteeing the lessons learned, would make it possible to sustain the project beyond the mere intensification in the case considered during the weeks of field work. In short, we consider that the main contribution of this research lies in empirically describing a procedure that makes it possible to implement the notion of “socio-educational ecosystems for inclusion” necessary to achieve the transition from inclusive education as a “principle” to its consideration as a “right”.