Migrant Fishers’ Cultural Funds of Knowledge and Translanguaging Praxis for the Development of Contextualized Instructional Material: A Narrative Ethnography

Abstract

Fishing is a flourishing industry in Antique, Philippines, which led to the mushrooming settlement of Cebuano-speaking migrant fishers in the coastal villages. With the implementation of the K to 12, pressing concerns about the lack of contextualized instructional materials (IM) in these trans-local spaces emerged. This study aimed to generate the cultural funds of knowledge and translanguaging praxis of migrant fishers as bases for developing contextualized instructional material. Under the lens of narrative ethnography and cultural memory banking as a mediational tool, various “seeds” about the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of migrant fishers were documented in memory bank charts. Translingual narratives were analyzed. Participants were purposively chosen and all qualitative data were analyzed qualitatively using manual coding and QDA Lite Miner software processing. Cultural beliefs and practices in fishing were presented in memory bank charts and analyzed adapting Polkinghorne’s analysis of narratives. Contextualized storybooks accompanied by a teacher’s guide were developed, validated, evaluated, and pilot-tested. It resulted in a “very acceptable” for the storybook and an “excellent” rating for the teacher’s guide. The study recommends that school heads create opportunities to involve teachers, parents, and other people in the coastal community to interact beyond the classroom setting. Contextualizing community resources and indigenous knowledge as inputs in the lessons and the IM across other subject areas may be explored.