Appropriating the sociocultural resources of Latino paraeducators for effective instruction with Latino students -: Promise and problems

This article examines the sociocultural scaffolding practices of 24 Latino para-educators and 8 former Latino paraeducators (who had recently become teachers) as they worked with Latino students in two large urban schools. Instances were observed in which participants used important funds of knowledge in their interactions with students during instruction, in informal contexts, and in the case of the current paraeducators to inform the teachers with whom they worked in the community. Unfortunately, use of sociocultural scaffolding was scarce, nonstrategic, and not directly tied to instruction. We argue that under ideal instructional conditions, this knowledge should be fostered, used strategically, and appropriated more systematically.