Feeling at Home in the Classroom: Pedagogy Community and the Social Class Background of Teachers in Rural Schools

<p>This mixed-methods research aimed to understand the extent to which staff of six schools in rural England, share, recognise and draw upon, their pupils’ experience within the household and community. Starting from the critical concepts of ‘funds of knowledge’ and ‘culturally relevant pedagogy’, the research focused on the life experiences of school staff (including school leaders, teachers and teaching assistants), asking whether those who (i) share a similar socio-economic background with their pupils or (ii) participate in those communities by living in it and using its services are better equipped to identify and draw on the historically accumulated knowledge of their pupils and community in the classroom. The survey (n = 126) found that senior leadership staff, being working class and working at a primary school were each associated with a greater overall ability to know about their pupils’ funds of knowledge. Subsequent interviews revealed how the increasing amount of ‘social work’ that teachers perform, supporting pupils and their parents, results in the classroom being treated as a space where the underlying causes of social problems, such as deprivation and declining mental health, are left at the door. </p>