Integration of Historically Marginalized students’ and teachers’ identities, languages, and lived worlds in urban middle school science classrooms

This qualitative case study explored the incorporation of students' funds of knowledge (FoK) by six middle school science teachers in diverse urban classrooms. Drawing from asset-based and culturally inclusive pedagogies, our study is based on the premise that students' diverse identities, languages, and lived experiences (i.e. FoK) are valuable resources for their learning. This study aimed to achieve three primary objectives: 1) explore how teachers recognized the diverse FoK of marginalized students, 2) examine the relationship between teachers' FoK and students' FoK, and 3) investigate the extent to which teachers integrated students' FoK into their teaching methods. Our analysis revealed that teachers' individual FoK backgrounds uniquely shaped how they identified and incorporated their students' FoK into the classroom, shedding light on the diverse approaches employed by teachers in delivering culturally relevant instruction.