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Article
Culture & Psychology
2014, Vol. 20(1) 3148
Funds of Identity: A new ! The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1354067X13515934

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approach
Moise`s Esteban-Guitart
University of Girona, Spain

Luis C Moll
University of Arizona, USA

Abstract
The main purpose of this paper is to articulate a theory of human identity from a
Vygotskian perspective. In doing so, we use the term funds of identity inspired by
the funds of knowledge approach. We use the term funds of identity to refer to the
historically accumulated, culturally developed, and socially distributed resources that
are essential for a persons self-definition, self-expression, and self-understanding. Funds
of knowledgebodies of knowledge and skills that are essential for the well-being of an
entire householdbecome funds of identity when people actively use them to define
themselves. From our point of view, identity is made up of cultural factors such as
sociodemographic conditions, social institutions, artifacts, significant others, practices,
and activities. Consequently, understanding identity requires an understanding of the
funds of practices, beliefs, knowledge, and ideas that people make use of.

Keywords
Identity, funds of knowledge, qualitative approach, sociocultural theory, funds of
identity

Since William James developed a non-metaphysical conception of self, which he

called The Empirical Self or Me (James, 1890/2007), there have been various inves-
tigations aiming to clarify the psychological, social, and cultural nature of self,
considered as an organizing construct in the behavioural and social sciences

Corresponding author:
Moise`s Esteban-Guitart, Department of Psychology, Institute of Educational Research, Faculty of Education
and Psychology, University of Girona, Placa Sant Dome`nec, 9, Girona 17071, Spain.
Email: moises.esteban@udg.edu
32 Culture & Psychology 20(1)

(Leary & Tangney, 2005, p. 3). James (1890/2007) denes the Empirical Self as all
that he is tempted to call by the name of me. But it is clear that between what a man
calls me and what he simply calls mine the line is dicult to draw. We feel and
act about certain things that are ours very much as we feel and act about ourselves
(p. 291).
From this perspective, the self includes everything that we consider ours
(mine), those things, objects, or people who are part of our experiencewhatever
might be considered as meaningful to us. For us, it is here, perhaps, that we nd the
novelty in James psychological analysis: drawing attention to the inclusiveness
(individual plus cultural experience) of the self. That is, the experience of self is
not a metaphysical concept but, rather, an empirical one and it is linked to what the
person does; to his having some phenomenological, subjective experience of it, as
will be argued later through Vygotskian concept of perezhivanie.
However, identity, as a concept, is often an ambiguous, confused, and abstract
term. There is no general agreement about what identity is and how it is con-
structed. Depending on the theoretical approach, identity can be understood as a
cognitive phenomenon or a cultural process, as a personal or social thing (Leary &
Tangney, 2005). Indeed, it must be stressed here that identity is not a thing, but a
social construct vaguely referring to a vastly complex set of phenomena.
Identity, such as culture, has part of people everyday vocabulary and what
Bruner refers as Folk Psychology or common sense. Everyone talks about identity.
Indeed, identity is usually coupled with a range of adjectives to indicate some
properties of a category, such as black identity, sexual identity, catholic
identity, muslim identity, and so on.
Probably, this concept is indispensable and probably there is not any one pos-
sible right denition. For us, it is not possible to state that any specic denition of
identity is the correct one and others are wrong. However, it is important to clarify
the specic meaning for theoretical and empirical reasons. By clarify, we mean to
explain the specic manner in which the term identity can be employed in a
particular theoretical context. That is the main purpose of this paper and the def-
inition we will suggest. In other words, we shall try to situate identity in a
broader theoretical and empirical context, that is, the funds of knowledge approach
based on a Vygotskiana point of view.
Although Vygotsky wrote down only rudimentary ideas about personality and
did not say anything about identity, he does oer various theoretical instruments
that help to conceptualize identity. Indeed, cultural psychology and sociocultural
research have brought their own integrated perspectives on self and/or identity
(Bruner, 2003; Christopher & Bickhard, 2007; Coll & Falsa, 2010; Esteban-
Guitart & Ratner, 2011; Gee, 2000; Hermans & Gieser, 2011; Holland &
Lachicotte, 2007; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Penuel & Wertsch, 1995; Valsiner, 2002).
In what follows, we deal with identity from a Vygotskian perspective. Rather
than revise the large literature on identity, we sketch out one approach that draws
on one consistent strand of that literature. This is not to deny that other, equally
useful, approaches are possible, based on dierent selections from the literature
Esteban-Guitart and Moll 33

(for example, based on Eriksons theory of psychosocial development). In that

sense, we shall describe the funds of knowledge approach in order to situate the
issue of identity within this research. In our view, funds of knowledge become funds
of identity when people actively internalize family and community resources to
make meaning and to describe themselves. In that regard, we will describe certain
principles on identity and some strategies to study funds of identity. Finally, we will
conclude by suggesting further directions for future work in order to develop the
concept of funds of identity.

Identity from a Vygotskian point of view

At the end of his brief life, Vygotskyin connection with the social situation of
development (Bozhovich, 2009) used the concept perezhivanie, which is usually
translated as emotional experience, lived experience or simply as experi-
ence. During the 19331934 academic year, Vygotsky delivered a lecture at the
A. I. Herzen Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. In this context, Vygotsky (1998)
argued:

A unity can be noted in the study of personality and environment. This unity in
psychopathology and psychology has been called experience [perezhivanie]. The
childs experience is also this kind of very simple unity about which we must not
say that in itself it represents the inuence of the environment on the child or the
individuality of the child himself; experience is the unity of the personality and the
environment as it is represented in development (...) experience is the actual dynamics
of the unity of consciousness, that is, the whole which comprises consciousness (...) To
state a certain, general, formal position, it would be correct to say that the environ-
ment determines the development of the child through experience of the environment.
(p. 294)

According to Van der Veer and Valsiner (1994), the term perezhivanie serves to
express the idea that one and the same objective situation may be interpreted,
perceived, experienced or lived through by dierent children in dierent ways
(p. 354). Lived experience is the result of any transaction between people and the
world, emphasizing the subjective signicance of the situation on the person. That
is to say, cultural practices do not impact directly on behaviour. Instead, lived
experiencethe subjective side of culturemediates and organizes behaviour.
Lived experience is a dynamic, uid and complex unit of analysis between person-
ality characteristics and environmental characteristics. On the one hand, a childs
previous experience determines what he or she brings to the situation. On the other,
the social and cultural situation oers possibilities and constrictions. How these
external situations are refracted by the child is the lived experience, an indissol-
uble whole that integrates the individual and the world: rst there is how I am
experiencing (understanding, feeling) something. Then, each event or situation has
a dierent eect on behaviour depending on how each person understands it.
34 Culture & Psychology 20(1)

It is important to note here that for Vygotsky (1979), consciousness is the object
of analysis, the subject matter and task of psychology (Zinchenko, 2009).
Consciousness is a complex psychological phenomenon that manages behaviour.
In other words, behaviour is driven and mediated by consciousness and conscious-
ness means experiencing lived experiences. In other words, cultural practices and
factors are mediated by psychological phenomena such as motivation, perception,
memory, and self-concept. Through these subjective processes (lived experiences),
people respond to cultural factors and, moreover, generate culturally appropriate
behaviour and particular identities to meet the requirements of the situation.
It can be argued that identities, created and recreated in interactions between
people in a given context, are lived experiences on self. In that sense, identity is a
conceptual artifact that contains, connects, and enables reection over the emo-
tional and cognitive processes of self-understanding and self-dening, in the past as
well as in the present and the future. Through sociocultural practices, individuals
not only learn the actual activities, but they also learn to be members of these social
and cultural communities, to experience themselves in a particular ways (Coll &
Falsa, 2010; Lave & Wenger, 1991).
From our point of view, lived experience is a pathway to subjectivity that can
help to integrate identity phenomena in social, historical, and cultural activities. In
other words, it helps to take into account the phenomenological side of psycho-
logical experience. However, according to the cultural-historical legacy, it can be
argued that any lived experiences are culturally organized because they internalize,
incarnate, and originate in a social context guided by cultural processes. In that
sense, Gonzalez Rey (2011) argued that subjectivity is a cultural unity of aect and
intellect (emotions and symbolic processes): the product of an ongoing subjective
sense of multiple and dynamic conguration of these two aspects through human
activities. People form senses of themselves (identities traduced by self-lived experi-
ences) in relation to the ways they inhabit the roles, positions, and cultural ima-
ginaries (Holland & Lachicotte, 2007) that matter to them. Through the mediation
of others (Moll, 2001), via symbolic forms, people actively internalize self-other
dialogues which develop over time (Valsiner, 2002). For Holland and Lachicotte
(2007) identities, as a higher order mental function, are culturally-imagined and
socially-recognized types social and cultural products that are actively inter-
nalized as self-meanings (treating ones own behaviour reexively as symbolic) and
serve as motivation for action. People identify themselves with (and against) these
socially-constructed types in the various domains of their everyday lives. That is
the reason why Penuel and Wertsch (1995, p. 83) recommend that researchers study
the formation of identities in local activity settings where participants are actively
engaged in forming their identities; to examine the cultural and historical resources
for identity formation as empowering and constraining tools for identity forma-
tion; and to take mediated action as a unit of analysis.
In line with these sociocultural studies of identity, Holland and Lachicotte
(2007) conclude that identities are simultaneously social products (collectively
developed and imagined social categories, for example any ethnic identity such
Esteban-Guitart and Moll 35

as Tsotsil identity) and personal formations in practice (self-meanings developed

through a sociogenetic process that entails active internalization). Identities are
also symbolic (identities are mediated by signs and symbols), reexive (identities
are involved in recognizing the self-in-practice and the self as a person), and a
source of motivation for action (identity, as with any high order mental function,
is a psychological device which is used to organize behaviour in any activity and to
make meaning and purpose). For us, it is important to emphasize here that iden-
tities are social products, cultural devices, a kind of box of tools which can be used
to dene oneself. In other words, the self-lived experiences, even if individually
told, are products of a collective storytelling (Sfard & Prusak, 2005), master nar-
ratives (Hammack, 2011), Discourses (Gee, 2000), politics of ideological
becoming (Tappan, 2005), or schematic narrative templates (Wertsch, 2002).
Then, identity can be understood as a consciousness device (see, for example,
Hofstadter, 2007), self-lived experiences, but should also be understood as the
objectstechnologiesas an externalization, and devices, of ones identity, what
we will call funds of identity.
To summarize, from the Vygotskian perspective, identity is embedded in con-
crete, historical cultural factors such as social institutions, artifacts, and cultural
beliefs. Through participation in human activities and practicessocialization and
educationpeople develop and create lived experiences within themselves. For
now, we accept the denition of identity provided by Stryker (2000): Identity
refers to an internalized set of meanings attached to a role played in a network
of social relationships, with a persons self viewed as, in important part, an organ-
ization of the various identities held by the person (p. 6). Later, we will review and
redene this denition according to the funds of knowledge approach in order to
suggest a reconceptualization of identity that we call funds of identity.

The funds of knowledge approach: Connecting home,

school, and community
At the intersection of anthropology, psychology, and education, the funds of know-
ledge approach assumes that families and communities are valuable educational
resources. As argued by Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti (2005), this approach is based
on the simple premise that people are competent and have life experiences; conse-
quently, they have accumulated knowledge or forms of capital (Rios-Aguilar,
Kiyama, Gravitt, & Moll, 2011). Grounded in the seminal works by Velez-Ibanez
(1983) on U.S. Mexican households and their social and economic systems of
interchange, and from a sociocultural approach, the concept of funds of knowledge
is dened by Moll, Amanti, Ne, and Gonzalez (1992) as: these historically-
accumulated and culturally-developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential
for household or individual functioning and well-being (p. 133). Households accu-
mulate multiple bodies of knowledge, ideas, and skills in order to maintain the
household and individual well-being. For example, Latino households in Arizona
have accumulated a wide breadth of knowledge in areas such as agriculture, mining
36 Culture & Psychology 20(1)

and metallurgy, ranching and animal husbandry, cross-border transactions, paint-

ing, literacy and biliteracy, design and architecture, religion or business (Gonzalez
et al., 2005). These funds of knowledge are the result of peoples lived experiences,
including their social interaction, their participation in multiple job markets, and
their varied language-related activities (Gonzalez & Moll, 2002; Moll &
Cammarota, 2010). Indeed, by culture we mean practices and lived experiences,
that is, what it is that people do, and what they say about what they do. Through
these lived experiences grounded in the processes of everyday life and daily activ-
ities, individuals consume and use funds of knowledge.
It is important to note here that funds of knowledge are artifacts or psycho-
logical tools (Vygotsky, 1978), that is, distributed semiotic resources that mediate
human behaviour. In other words, funds of knowledge do not exist solely within
the mind of the individual, but rather they are distributed among persons, artifacts,
activities, and settings (Gonzalez, Andrade, Civil, & Moll, 2001; Moll, Tapia, &
Whitmore, 1993). The key point is that human beings and their social worlds are
inseparable. This is an important idea to keep in mind in order to understand the
concept of funds of identity that we will develop later.

Funds of identity: The distributed and mediated nature

of identity
We have learned from the funds of knowledge approach that through investigating
and documenting the many particular funds of knowledge that students have, their
identities can be validated and incorporated into the school (Gonzalez & Moll,
2002). Indeed, Velez-Ibanez and Greenberg (1992) introduce, to a certain extent,
the idea of funds of knowledge to attempt to understand how U.S. Mexican chil-
dren construct their cultural identity. Nevertheless, their approach lacks a concep-
tualization of identity and the methodological strategies to capture specically the
identity of students and their families. In this regard, the goal of this section is to
provide a denition of identity and to illustrate some methodological strategies that
can be used to study it.
Identity is often considered to take place solely within the mind of the individ-
ual. It is felt to be something in peoples heads that is xeda trait of their per-
sonality. On the contrary, identity is embedded in culture and vice versa; thus, we
cannot reduce human identity to individual properties or traits. Instead, it is always
mediated (Penuel & Wertsch, 1995), distributed among people, artifacts, activities
and contexts. People dene themselves through other people and through the arti-
facts and resourcesvisible and invisibleof their social and cultural worlds. In
that sense, social relationships, signicant others, particular activities and practices,
political ideologies, religious beliefs or any other artifact, such as a ag or a song,
become resources for making and expressing identity. There is no frontier between
the world and the identity of individuals (No man is an island entire of itself as
poet John Donne (15721631) said). We totally agree with Scribner (1990) when
she wrote: Vygotskys special genius was in grasping the signicance of the social
Esteban-Guitart and Moll 37

in things as well as people. The world in which we live is humanized, full of material
and symbolic objects (signs, knowledge systems) that are culturally constructed,
historical in origin and social in content (p. 92). Identity is in things as well as
people. The world in which we live is identitized, full of resources for making
peoples identities. Inspirated by the Stryker denition of identity mentioned
above, we could consider that identity refers to an internalized and externalized
set of meaning, practices, and distributed resources embedded in ways of life and
contexts for learning. In an important way, a persons self can be viewed as a
dynamic organization of various resources, socially, historically, and culturally
created.
It is important to note that there are four critical components in our denition of
identity. First, identities comprise all those people, skills, knowledge, practices, and
resources that people have acquired and now use through their involvement in their
various activities, such as in the labor market and in diverse social interactions.
Second, these artifacts are internalized as well as externalized, that is, they can
encompass various people (for example, a ag is an artifact which involves a par-
ticular national identity). Third, people form their identities (visions of themselves)
through these acquired resources by engaging in social activities and by observing
how members interact. More specically, social institutions and practices (work,
school, church, sport) work as a hub of activities, resources, and patterns of iden-
tity that are available to children. And this, directly or indirectly, through explicit
or implicit educational processes, forms their identities. Fourth, identityas with
any other higher order psychological processis essentially social in origin. People
actively appropriate discourses, narratives, and visions or models of identity, but
this is always cultural material. Funds of knowledge are repositories of identity to
which people have access. Consequently, the funds of knowledge are funds of
identity when people use them to dene themselves. Specically, what we under-
stand by funds of identity are historically accumulated, culturally developed, and
socially distributed resources that are essential for peoples self-denition, self-
expression, and self-understanding. In other words, the term funds of identity
which we are using here denotes a set of resources or box of tools and signs.
Based on Vygotskis legacy, Gillespie and Zittoun (2010) distinguish between
tools, which are used to act upon the world (a car mediates our relation to the
physical world), and signs, which are used to act upon the mind (language mediates
our relation to our own and other minds). It is important to note that Gillespie and
Zittoun (2010) emphasize that these distinction is not based on the cultural element
itself, but upon how it is used. Indeed, these cultural products (the novels people
read, the lms they see, the music they hear and sing) act as symbolic resources in
the process of development (Zittoun, Duveen, Gillespie, Ivinson, & Psaltis, 2003).
To us, these tools and sings (cultural products and symbolic resources), iden-
titized, have been historically accumulated and culturally developed; they are
socially distributed and transmitted; and they are essential for constructing ones
identity and for dening and presenting oneself (Esteban-Guitart, 2012). In other
words, symbolic devices chosen and used by a person can support processes of
38 Culture & Psychology 20(1)

identity making. Nevertheless, resources for making identities or self-lived experi-

ences are not only artifacts (tools and signs). Social institutions, practices, social
relationships, and geographies are materials from we made our self-understanding
and develop self-denitions.
We would subdivide these funds of identity into ve major types: (1)
Geographical Funds of Identity (for example, the Grand Canyon as a symbol of
Arizona state in the United States of America), (2) Practical Funds of Identity (any
meaningful activity such as work, sports, or music), (3) Cultural Funds of Identity
(for instance, national ags or social category such as introversion/extroversion,
age, gender, or ethnic group), (4) Social Funds of Identity (signicant others such as
relatives, friends, or colleagues), and (5) Institutional Funds of Identity (any social
institution, such as family, marriage, or the Catholic Church).

How to detect the funds of identity? Some illustrative

examples
Traditionally, research in this eld has used ethnography techniques to detect funds
of knowledge. Specically, teachers visit homes, explore the surroundings, and
conduct interviews in order to detect family structure, labor history, household
activities (daily and weekly activities, distribution of household tasks, and educa-
tion and language), parental attitudes, money, religion, education, and ethnic iden-
tity. With regard to ethnic identity, the interviewer may ask questions such as Do
you ever talk to your child about being Mexican (or Yaqui)? and Do you make it
a point to participate in activities and events that make your child feel a part of the
Mexican/Yaqui community? In this section, we suggest, in addition to the stand-
ard interviews, the use of visual methods, graphic elicitation, and arts-based meth-
ods (Bagnoli, 2009) to examine the funds of identity. In particular, we suggest the
self-portrait (Bagnoli, 2009; Esteban-Guitart, & Vila, 2010; Gifre, Monreal, &
Esteban-Guitart, 2011) and a version of relational maps called signicant circle.
The self-portrait consists of a drawing the participant makes of him or herself.
The instruction is the following: I would like you to show me on this piece of
paper who you are at this moment in your life. If you wish, add the people and
things most important to you at this moment in your life.
Figure 1 shows an example of the self-portrait technique of a young 19-year-old
Tzotzil woman. Once the drawing has been obtained, the interviewee is asked to
explain it. I have drawn my community, with the church, I love this church and...
what else, this is my traditional dress - I love it. My mum, she is the most important
thing for me, my sister. What else... nature... because. . . this is what I am studying
right now. . . ecotourism, alternative and rural tourism would not be possible with-
out nature. We are nothing without it. The trees and owers are our life.
The self-portrait gives us information about the participants funds of identity.
In this case, about her community, her family (especially her mother), and nature
(and what she is studyingtourism). In other words, the self-portrait informs us
about the womans social funds of identity (signicant others), her cultural funds of
Esteban-Guitart and Moll 39

Figure 1. Example of self-portrait.

identity (artifacts such as tools or cultural concepts), her geographical funds of

identity (geographical settings), and her practices or forms of life.
This example illustrate how identity is a distributed and culturally mediated
product, which is distributed among other people (the mother, in our example),
social institutions (for example, the church), geographical territories (her commu-
nity), and artifacts (for instance, the dress). It is a lived experience, embedded in
social and cultural sources of identity. The community, the family, or the local
geography (nature) are sources of funds of knowledge that become funds of iden-
tity when participants appropriate them and use them to dene themselves. Indeed,
these sources of self or funds of identity are signs through which human beings
constitute themselves. People are perpetually engaged in processes whereby they
dene and produce their own self-understanding.
40 Culture & Psychology 20(1)

Figure 2. Albas self-portrait.

Obviously, this technique can be used right across the age range and has been
administrated successfully to young children and adolescents right through to
people of advanced age (Gifre, Monreal, & Esteban-Guitart, 2011).
Figure 2 shows an example of the identity drawing of a young woman of 19
years of age. In this case, she has drawn on a university binder and shown dierent
things that she likes: Japanese culture, a computer, psychology, peace, music,
nature.
Once the drawing has been obtained, the interviewee is asked to explain it. By
way of example, we see an extract from the explanation given by the author of the
drawing in Figure 2.

Interviewee: This is what I am at the moment. There are things I like a lot, such as
literature, Japanese culture, the Internet, role-playing, psychology, music, fantasy.

Researcher: And all these things are important to you...

Interviewee: Yes. Im a student at the university and I love psychology, chatting with
my friends on the Internet, doing role playing and that kind of thing.

Researcher: Why have you represented Japanese culture?

Esteban-Guitart and Moll 41

Interviewee: Because I love Japanese drawings. I love to draw and I try to imitate
Japanese drawings.

Researcher: And what do those two faces represent?

Interviewee: My state of mind. Sometimes Im happy and sometimes Im angry and

sad: thats my personality.

Saubich and Esteban-Guitart (2011) illustrate how to detect specic funds of

identity using self-portrait technique in order to design specic signicative
curriculum. In particular, they studied funds of knowledge and identity of a
Moroccan family living in Catalonia (Spain) in order to document how teachers
can use these funds of knowledge to make direct links between students lives and
classroom teaching. For example, they interviewed a 12-year-old, who is in her
sixth year at primary school. She drew herself very large in the center of the paper,
with the women in her family, her mother and her three sisters, to her leftall the
females, including herself, were wearing the veil. She drew the male members of the
family, her father, with a beard, and her three brothers on the right. She dened
herself as being a joker, who was fun and outgoing, who likes music, body art
(henna), dancing and singing, and who became sad when it rained. The henna,
also called mignonette tree, is a owering plant used since antiquity to dye skin,
hair, ngernails, leather, and wool. The name is also used for the art of temporary
tattooing based on those dyes. Saubich and Esteban-Guitart (2011) take advantage
of the student expertise on henna in order to design several teaching activities
developed through the funds of identity.
Another technique that can be used to detect peoples funds of identity is the
signicant circle. This task consists of asking participants in the study to sum-
marize, by means of a single-page representation, their most important objects,
activities, people, institutions, and hobbies. It involves the person drawing a circle
and placing within it the dierent objects, activities, institutions, and people that he
or she perceives as being relevant, important, or signicant. Those that are nearest
the middle of the image are the most important for the subject. Figure 3 shows an
example of one such relational map in which the interviewee highlights her family
(children, husband, and mother) as well as sporting activities and handicrafts. In
this particular case, the funds of identity detected are: signicant people (children,
husband, and mother), social activities (sport), and hobbies (handicrafts). The idea
is to obtain a portrait, executed by the person herself, which features the most
important people, objects, and activities in her life. As in the self-portrait technique,
there is a follow-up discussion of the resulting document: the researcher asks ques-
tions, while the participant explains what she has represented or drawn.
Figure 4 shows two more examples of a signicant circle drawing of a child of
ve years of age and her sister of eight years of age. In both signicant circles are
represented the family and the school. However, there are dierent funds of iden-
tity such as drawing, sister of ve years of age, and orchard, sister of eight years of
42 Culture & Psychology 20(1)

Figure 3. Example of a significant circle.

Figure 4. Two examples of significant circle by girl aged 5 on the left and girl aged 8 on the
right.

age. Teachers can use both funds of identity to develop teaching units. For exam-
ple, they can design a biology teaching units or mathematical teaching units
through a garden module. In that sense, Civil (2007) provide us an example in
a fourth-/fth-grade combination classroom.
Esteban-Guitart and Moll 43

The purpose of the two techniques is to generate information on the lived

experiences in relation to the participants identity in order to collect his/her
funds of identity. This can complement an ethnographic study using other proced-
ures, such as in-depth interviews. Obviously, researchers can use other techniques
in order to obtain further detail of participants narratives on identity. However,
these two strategies, self-portrait and signicant circle, are easy ways to detect and
express relevant information on identity from the participants perspective. The
idea is to attempt to develop a mathematical apprenticeship, for instance, in a
school setting, by embedding the mathematical learning in the context of a socio-
cultural activity in which the pupils want to participate and in which they are able
to participate given their actual abilities.

Conclusion
The funds of knowledge approach is based on a simple premise: regardless of any
socioeconomical and sociocultural decit that people may or may not have all
families accumulate bodies of beliefs, ideas, skills, and abilities based on their
experiences (in areas such as their occupation or their religion). The challenge
consists in connecting these bodies of educational resources with teaching practice
in order to connect the curriculum with students lives. In other words, funds of
knowledge research is driven by an equity agenda that capitalizes on building on
the students and their families knowledge and experiences as resources for
schooling.
Although research on funds of knowledge has been extensive, this approach has
several limitations: use of a single methodological approach or dependence on
adult household practices as the primary unit of analysis (Moll, 2005; Rios-
Aguilar et al., 2011). The concept of funds of identity allows us to take into account
dierent methodological approaches (using dierent strategies or techniques such
as self-portrait and signicant circle) (Esteban-Guitart, 2012). The use of these
qualitative strategies can help researchers examine the variation in students
funds of identity, which is critical to the advancement of this conceptual frame-
work. Another limitation of the existing research on funds of knowledge relies in
the choice of the unit of analysis. As acknowledged by Moll (2005) and Rios-
Aguilar et al. (2011), the existing research on funds of knowledge has informed
educators and researchers primarily about adult practices and social worlds.
However, children, too, create their own funds of knowledge, which may be inde-
pendent from the adults social life. As such, we propose the need to study the
existing funds of identity of students. We argue that funds of knowledge approach
should also be studied from a Vygotskian perspective on identity. This would
include the examination of processes that convert or transform various funds of
knowledge into other more tangible students funds of identity.
From a Vygotskian point of view, humans use artifacts (cultural and psycho-
logical signs and tools) to mediate their interactions with the world and other
people. We suggest, more specically, that humans use such artifacts to create,
44 Culture & Psychology 20(1)

express, and develop their identities. Indeed, the artifacts themselves are resources
for constructing identity. It is in this sense that identity is embedded, distributed,
and spread among geographical locations, people, social institutions, activities and
practices, and artifacts such as a poster, a cross, a computer, or a ring. These
systems and forms of identity, including art, language, people, mathematics or
sport, are ways of being, knowing, and experiencing. Nevertheless, these powerful
resources are sometimes overlooked and untapped by school curricula. This is one
of the reasons why schools sometimes become a separate world, unconnected to
people, their families, and their communities. It has been suggested that one of the
main roles of schooling is to create social contexts (sociocultural zones of proximal
development) for mastery of and conscious awareness in the use of these cultural
tools (Moll, 1990). The challenge is to create Zones of Proximal Identity
Development (Polman, 2010) in order to recognize and maintain optimal identi-
ties for learning (Coll & Falsa, 2010).
In other words, learning takes place when participants, supported and guided by
others, are involve in activities that enact connections between prior knowledge
and experiences (incrusted in their identities) and new information. In that regard,
funds of identity acts as a lens through which we view and absorb new information
and new identities. It is a dynamic composite of who we are and who we are
becoming, based on what we have learned (and we are learning) from both our
academic and everyday experiences.
It could be argued that students learn and remember new information best when
it is linked to relevant prior knowledge, specically prior funds of identity.
Understanding the students funds of identity helps teachers to select the appro-
priate instructional materials and to connect the curriculum content to students
culture, identity, and experience. Encouraging the learning of new funds of identity
is an instructional task that occurs between children and adults outside of school,
and students and teachers inside of school.
The Zone of Proximal Identity Development (Polman, 2010) includes por-
tions of apprenticeship immediate trajectories of identication and prior funds
of identity that impact their participation in the learning environment on a
moment-to-moment basis, and which lead to their longer term development of
identity translated into new funds of identity.
The concept we suggest here not meant to be a nal integrative statement in
funds of knowledge research. Rather, the distinction between funds of knowledge
and funds of identity is put forward as an attempt to review and take stock. In that
spirit, we want to conclude by considering a problematic issue that will need to be
considered in future theorizing.
Funds of identity, provided by the self-portrait and signicant circle, are inter-
nalized meanings from social context. However, it can be argued that people are
not aware of other funds of identity such as hegemonic societal values and concepts
that may be so naturalized that one may not think to include it in their self-portrait
or their signicant circle. In other words, there are invisible funds of identity (such
as individualistic values, Esteban-Guitart, 2011; Ratner, 2011) which mediate
Esteban-Guitart and Moll 45

behaviour and identity but is absorbed in the act. In order to deal with this prob-
lem, we need to use interpretation and other qualitative strategies to detect the
possible funds of a particular identity. In sum, further theoretical conceptualization
and empirical research is needed in order to precise the nature of visible and invis-
ible funds of identity.

Funding
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant number
EDU2009-12875).

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Author biographies
Moises Esteban-Guitart, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of
Psychology at University of Girona. His research focuses on articulating how
the development of identity is closely intertwined with issues of culture and edu-
cation. His ongoing research program examines the continuities and discontinuities
between school and family of children of the Africa living in Spain. His work has
been published in the Narrative Inquiry; Mind, Culture, and Activity; Canadian
Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne; Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless;
Universitas Psychologica; Estudios de Psicologa; Cultura y Educacion; The Spanish;
Journal of Psychology or Infancia y Aprendizaje, among other journals. Recently,
48 Culture & Psychology 20(1)

he has published some entries in The encyclopedia of critical psychology (edited by

Thomas Teo, Springer, 2014) and co-authored (with Iliana Reyes) a chapter in the
Handbook of research on childrens literacy, learning and culture (edited by Kathy
Hall, Teresa Cremin, Barbara Comber, and Luis Moll, 2013, John Wiley & Sons).

Luis C Moll, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Language, Reading and

Culture in the College of Education, University of Arizona. He joined the faculty
of LRC in 1986. Prior to that, from 1979 to 1986, he worked at the Laboratory of
Comparative Human Cognition and the Communications Department, both of the
University of California, San Diego. His main research interest is the connection
among culture, psychology, and education, especially as it relates to the education
of Latino children in the United States. Among other studies, he has analyzed the
quality of classroom teaching, examined literacy instruction in English and
Spanish, studied how learning takes place in the broader social contexts of house-
hold and community life, and attempted to establish pedagogical relationships
among these domains of study. His work has been published in the Educational
Researcher; Theory into Practice; Journal of Reading Behavior; Anthropology and
Education Quarterly; Theory and Research in Education; Urban Education; Journal
of Teacher Education; Mind, Culture, and Activity, among other journals. Recently,
he has co-edited (with Kathy Hall, Teresa Cremin, and Barbara Comber) the
Handbook of research on childrens literacy, learning and culture (2013, John
Wiley & Sons), co-edited (with Norma Gonzalez and Cathy Amanti) the Funds
of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms
(2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), and published a book entitled L. S.
Vygotsky and education (2013, Routledge).

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