ABSTRACT
The term funds of knowledge (FK) refers to the existing resources, knowledge, and skills embedded in students and their families. This chapter argues that a funds of knowledge approach can help faculty to consider students' backgrounds and living conditions as sources of valuable knowledge rather than mere impediments to college-level learning. It examines what FK can and cannot do to improve researchers' and practitioners' understanding of under-represented students' trajectories and experiences in college. Funds of knowledge, as a concept, was first introduced in the higher education scholarship by Estela Bensimon. In her 2007 presidential address to the Association for the Study of Higher Education, she highlighted the role that FK play in helping faculty to see students and families in terms of possibilities, thus countering the negative representations of under-represented students that plague the field of higher education.
