Curricula and pedagogic potentials when educating diverse students in higher education: students’ Funds of Knowledge as a bridge to disciplinary learning

With the massification of higher education in a knowledge-driven economy, Western universities have struggled to keep pace with the cultural, linguistic, educational and economic diversity of university students and the complex realities of their lifeworlds. This has generated systemic inequities for diverse or ‘non-traditional’ students, and left academics with pedagogic uncertainty. This paper reports on action research that examined curricular and pedagogic practices that made elite academic codes explicit, and utilised students’ Funds of Knowledge as assets for disciplinary learning, in an Australian university. The action research confirmed the potential of creating bridges between the cultural practices and literacies of diverse students and the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge, facilitating their negotiation of multiple literacies and the successful participation of all students. Institutional arrangements – governed by economic, cultural and socio-political conditions – that enabled and constrained these potentials were highlighted, suggesting areas for negotiation for the pedagogies’ ongoing and wider use.