Free Your Mind and Your Practice Will Follow: Exploring Hip-Hop Habits of Mind as a Practice of Educational Freedom

Abstract

In this article, I critically dissect hip-hop habits of mind as a professional way of thinking, being, and doing (knowing, speaking and behaving) and explain how these habits hold critical literacy and cultural literacy benefits for students and educators. The goal of this project was to identify and name hip-hop habits of mind and to explore how educators view them as professionally life-giving practices. In exploring the nature of hip-hop culture, themes such as freedom of thought, flexibility, truth-telling, creativity, authenticity, confidence, braggadocio, uninhibited voice, unrestricted movement, community, honor, integrity, and cultural efficacy were discussed and organized as the Hip-Hop Mindset framework. This framework consists of the habits, values, and practices that promote cultural efficacy and critical social action within hip-hop culture.