A Conceptual Exploration

Listen or Read

A cultural learning community brings together everyone involved in the educational experience and positions each person as an active contributor. In Canadian schools—where students represent a wide range of cultural, linguistic, and family backgrounds—this approach allows learning to grow from the diversity of the community itself (Volante, Klinger, & Bilgili, 2018). Participation is shared, relational, and grounded in the idea that culture is a powerful resource for understanding, communication, and collaborative problem-solving.

Students as Knowledge Contributors

Students are at the centre of this community. They participate not only as learners but also as knowledge contributors (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005). Their cultural histories, languages, family traditions, and lived experiences offer valuable perspectives that help shape classroom discussions and learning pathways. Research demonstrates that immigrant students bring rich, diverse cultural backgrounds to the classroom and expose their peers and teachers to different ways of understanding the world (Warikoo, 2014). Despite facing numerous challenges—including language barriers, interrupted schooling, and navigating new cultural contexts—children of immigrants in Canada perform comparably with their peers with Canadian-born parents in educational achievement overall, largely due to educational policies that commit to equal access and promote the importance of first language use and cultural identity (Cheng & Yan, 2018).

Students support one another by sharing interpretations, asking questions informed by their backgrounds, and engaging in collaborative inquiry. When educators adopt a funds of knowledge framework, they recognize that students’ families possess “culturally and linguistically accumulated bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being” (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992, p. 133). This perspective positions students not as deficient in mainstream cultural capital, but as possessing rich knowledge systems from their homes and communities that can be leveraged for academic learning (Civil & Quintos, 2022). In doing so, they learn to see culture as a tool for expanding understanding, building empathy, and deepening their academic engagement.

Teachers as Facilitators and Co-Learners

Teachers take on the role of facilitators and co-learners (Gay, 2010; Paris & Alim, 2017). Rather than being the sole source of knowledge, they create conditions that encourage students to exchange ideas, bring cultural experiences into the learning process, and make connections across identities and subject matter. Research on culturally sustaining education emphasizes that teachers must move beyond deficit perspectives that position families as needing help, and instead recognize caregivers as experts in their children and their best advocates (Quintos, 2025).

Teachers guide dialogue, pose questions that draw out diverse viewpoints, and design learning experiences that weave together curriculum expectations with the cultural knowledge present in the classroom. Their role involves listening closely, validating students’ contributions, and helping the group co-construct meaning. Building relationships with immigrant students and their families is essential to helping them thrive—creating culturally safe spaces where students see their upbringing respected and valued (McCarrol, 2018). In Canada’s successful approach to supporting immigrant students, teacher quality stands as one of the most important school-based influences, supported by rigorous teacher selection and preparation processes.

Families as Partners and Knowledge Holders

Families participate by sharing insights about students’ cultural practices, values, and learning preferences (Epstein, 2011). Their involvement helps teachers understand the broader contexts that shape students’ identities and ways of making sense of the world. Research on Indigenous family engagement emphasizes that families should be heard, respected, and valued at their children’s schools, and that they desire to support the inclusion of content about Indigenous peoples in the classroom while standing with educators as part of the school community (Washington et al., 2023).

In many cases, families contribute stories, community knowledge, linguistic resources, or cultural experiences that enrich classroom learning and strengthen the relationship between home and school (Guo, 2012). However, it is important to note that Indigenous families—and many immigrant families—may conceptualize family structure differently than Western nuclear family models, often including intergenerational households with grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and community members who are considered family (Robbins et al., 2013; Sianturi et al., 2022). This broader understanding of family is crucial for genuine partnership.

Effective family-school partnerships require reciprocity, respect, and the development of what scholars call “politicized trust”—explicit recognition that multicultural forms of inclusion blind to Indigenous sovereignty perpetuate colonialism (Bang et al., 2018). For immigrant families specifically, partnerships are strengthened when schools acknowledge the funds of knowledge these families possess and move away from deficit-oriented assumptions (Valdés, 1996; González et al., 2005). Home visits, community events, and flexible engagement opportunities—meeting families where they already gather—build the trusting relationships necessary for meaningful collaboration (Gerlach & Gignac, 2019).

Community Members, Elders, and Knowledge Keepers

Community members, including Elders, cultural leaders, local organizations, and knowledge keepers, play a significant role as well. They bring perspectives that expand students’ understanding of the world and connect classroom learning with community realities (Battiste, 2013; Kirkness & Barnhardt, 1991). Their presence helps students see that knowledge exists in many forms and that learning is an ongoing process shaped by relationships across generations and cultures.

In Indigenous educational contexts, Elders hold primacy to teach local wisdom and knowledge and sustain traditions, customs, and cultural history (Burnette, 2018; Robbins et al., 2013). As one Elder shared in research by Bond (2010), Indigenous families and communities are the “mob” who should be listened to and followed in all matters involving Indigenous students and Indigenous education. This principle of community leadership and expertise extends beyond Indigenous contexts to all culturally sustaining approaches.

The Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework in Canada emphasizes that programs must be designed and governed by Indigenous peoples, rooted in Indigenous knowledge, language and culture, and guided by Indigenous practices, with continuous engagement of children, families, and communities—including mothers, fathers, aunties, uncles, grandparents, Elders, and caregivers (Government of Canada, 2018). This model of community participation provides important insights for all cultural learning communities.

In Ontario, formal structures such as Indigenous Education Councils (IECs) guide school boards in building stronger relationships with communities, sharing information, and enhancing collaborative work to support First Nation, Métis, and Inuit student achievement and well-being (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2025). The participation of Elders in programming, the inclusion of community members in decision-making, and cultural immersion workshops all enrich educators’ understanding of the centrality of Indigenous culture (Barblett et al., 2020; Savage et al., 2014; Burgess & Cavanagh, 2015).

Shared, Fluid, and Interconnected Roles

Within this framework, the roles are shared, fluid, and interconnected (Stoll et al., 2006; Lieberman & Miller, 2011). Everyone teaches, everyone learns, and everyone contributes to the collective understanding. The interactions among students, teachers, families, and community partners create a learning environment where cultural diversity becomes a source of insight, creativity, and academic growth.

Culturally sustaining and culturally sustaining/revitalizing practices offer a paradigmatic shift in how family-school-community engagement has been traditionally conceptualized and practiced (Washington et al., 2023). These approaches expand the notion of who counts and should be listened to as leaders, and reconceptualize where leadership in education takes place. When educational institutions engage with Indigenous families and immigrant families during challenging times in ways that support self-determination, cultural revitalization, and sustenance, they move away from contributing to ongoing legacies of colonization, racism, and cultural erasure (Madden et al., 2013).

By recognizing culture as a dynamic resource, a cultural learning community supports students in developing stronger identities, deeper connections to their learning, and a sense of belonging within a multicultural school environment (Thiessen & Cook-Sather, 2007; James, 2019). Research demonstrates that when schools build personal connections with local communities with shared understanding and commitment, the school’s relationship with families strengthens, and schools can reach parents more effectively (Grace & Trudgett, 2012; Sims et al., 2012). This collaborative approach, grounded in mutual respect and shared expertise, creates the conditions for all students to thrive.

Check the knowledge

Week Outcome

During Week 3, students explore the idea that learning is a shared responsibility supported by many people inside and beyond the classroom. The activities emphasize the roles that family members, peers, teachers, community leaders, and cultural knowledge keepers play in shaping how students learn and experience the world. Through creating role cards, interviewing peers, and mapping community networks, students begin recognizing that a Cultural Learning Community grows from multiple voices, not just their own. This week helps learners appreciate the social and cultural nature of knowledge and prepares them to collaborate more intentionally in the following weeks.