Hip Hop Pedagogy Research Articles

The CIPP Evaluation Model: Breakdance Course Evaluation in Hip-Hop Pedagogy

This article presents an innovative and generalized CIPP evaluation model for breakdance courses based on Hip-hop pedagogy, designed to help educators evaluate the design, implementation, and effectiveness of breakdance courses. Despite global interest in breakdance evaluation, few studies have focused on developing a comprehensive evaluation model. As a result, we developed a CIPP evaluation model for breakdance based on hip-hop pedagogy that incorporates four key dimensions: context, input, process, and product, to guide the design and implementation and help educators better evaluate the quality of breakdance course implementation.

Your favourite authors favourite authors: a bibliometric social network analysis of hip-hop education literature

Abstract Hip-hop culture can be found globally, and hip-hop educators can be found in these same spaces. Therefore, hip-hop has been in classrooms and has been increasingly popular in a multitude of disciplines, including but not limited to health sciences, sociology, and education. Given the vast reach of hip-hop education research, a logical next step is to characterize the impact of hip-hop education scholarship using bibliometrics. We examined hip-hop education through the lens of bibliometrics and social network analysis (SNA). A pool of 371 studies was identified for citation analysis. The findings of this study contribute to the literature by characterizing the development of hip-hop education research. Specifically, we contribute to the field by: (1) identifying key scholarly contributions in hip-hop education and the linkages among them, (2) tracing the evolution of the field over time, (3) analyzing the impact of hip-hop on the field of education, and (4) exploring the cross-disciplinary role of hip-hop education research. Implications are provided for future research and praxis to support learners in urban spaces.

On Being Ed Emcees: Toward Hip-Hop Educational Leadership Theory, Research, and Praxis

ABSTRACT Advocating for the advancement of hip-hop based education, critical qualitative research, and leadership for educational equity, I explain a theory of hip-hop educational leadership and discuss findings from my hip-hopography of hip-hop educational leaders who are spoken word artists, poets, rappers, or emcees and serve as community partners inside urban high schools across the United States. Using blackout poetic transcription to analyze data, I suggest that these individuals can be called educational emcees, who invoke love as a condition for learning and engagement in their schools through a series of meaningful practices. These individuals also embody poetry and spoken word as an organic hip-hop pedagogy. Opportunities for additional qualitative research about hip-hop educational leadership and educational emcees are presented, along with implications for education leadership preparation, recruitment, and development.

Pitfalls of hip hop pedagogy: Re-examining and questioning the definition.

Recently, hip-hop pedagogy or Hip-Hop Based Education (HHBE) have become buzz words in the academic and public debate around hip-hop. However, we found that most definitions of hip-hop pedagogy are missing the concept of pedagogy itself. One consequence of failing to adequately explain the concept of pedagogy is that it may lead future hip-hop researchers, students, and teachers inadvertently to disseminate misinformation or foster unclear thinking by using "hip-hop pedagogy" in inaccurate or vague ways. For these reasons, it is important to have a shared understanding of hip-hop pedagogy. In this article, we present three updated, expanded definitions of hip-hop pedagogy with the potential for widespread acceptance. These definitions aim to convey in the simplest terms what hip-hop pedagogy is for the purpose of informing educators and preparing them to use data.

A Different Energy: The Critical Hip-Hop Teaching Artist and School Culture

We study the role of Hip-Hop teaching artists in a school change initiative. A school-university-community partnership in a Canadian city, the project sought to develop a school-wide focus on the “urban arts” for student learning and wellbeing. The experiences of nine teaching artists over four years, examined through the lens of Critical Hip-Hop Pedagogy, offer insight into the roles of Hip-Hop based teaching artists in a nontraditional, arts-based, school change initiative.

Hip-Hop History: A Course for Change

Hip-Hop History exposes inequities within the social studies curriculum and the challenges facing those who seek to change it. In this article, we share the process for creating a new social studies course in a suburban high school in central Ohio, the need for the course, and the resources created to assist in its adoption. The article argues for the theoretical need for change in the social studies curriculum. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Hip-Hop Pedagogies, we use Hip-Hop as a medium to shift the lens through which events are viewed. We use this course as an attempt to deconstruct the white, male, privileged version of American history and provide space for voices previously silenced by the dominant narratives. The article also outlines the many challenges educators and local school boards encounter trying to make such changes in current bureaucratic systems designed to perpetuate those narratives.

Towards an Antiracist Classroom Formative Assessment Framework

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to theoretically explore how Hip Hop pedagogy can be utilized and implemented in K-12 classroom formative assessment practices. As a conceptual paper, there will be five sections. The first section will explore classroom formative assessment definitions and highlight theoretical frameworks used to conceptualize the pedagogical practice. The next section will begin to formulate aspects of an antiracist classroom formative assessment theoretical framework. The third section will explore how Hip Hop pedagogy can be used as an antiracist classroom formative assessment approach, while the fourth section will address considerations and objections related to such usage. The final section will end with a call to action for educational researchers, professionals, and practitioners who want to interrogate and investigate how to overcome systematic racism and oppression in our classroom assessment research and practice.

Transhiphop pedagogy and epistemic disobedience in Senegal

ABSTRACT This study situates transnégritude within discussions that consider the ways in which young people in Senegal, with a shared transcolonial narrative, bound through an ‘imagined community,’ negotiate their space, their identities, and their ways of knowing through a Hip-Hop pedagogy. Our analysis is informed by Mignolo’s epistemic disobedience and the geo- and body-politics that challenge neo-colonial epistemologies. The global scope of Hip-Hop culture and its manifestations in West Africa nuances the ways in which young people view education and its impact on their social identity. A transnégritude perspective aptly ‘straddles’ black identity, agency, and deconstructionism and allows for a fluid navigation of Hip-Hop pedagogy. Through a Hip-Hop pedagogy, young people in Senegal work towards social transformation vis-a-vis informal education as a response to imperialism. In so doing, this study intends to contribute to qualitative inquiries on the connections between Hip-Hop, identity formation, and the ‘fluidity and location of engagement’ in Hip-Hop culture. The goal is to challenge the formal schooling context and interrogate youth identity and engagement vis-a-vis social transformation.

“A Tale of Two Classrooms”: Designing Culturally-Relevant Hip Hop Curriculum to Support STEM Identity of Underrepresented Students

This article explores how educators can contribute to the development of STEM identity in historically marginalized groups by using critical frameworks and pedagogies like Funds of Knowledge and Critical Hip-Hop Pedagogy as a curricular tool to counter traditional teaching practices. The authors amplify the importance of cultural spaces that support educators in examining aspects of power, access, and cultural awareness in STEM classrooms to increase student participation and acquisition of STEM knowledge. This article provides a guided activity named “A tale of two citiez” as an example of how educators can act towards (re)conceptualizing and (re)imagining STEM classrooms.

Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy, Moral Ambiguity, and Social Technologies

This article investigates hip hop activists within different organizational structures and their approach to hip hop as cultural form in itself, their cultural assumptions and educational ideologies as well as their relationship to institutional education, the music market and the citizen formation related to the Danish state’s integration projects. We argue that while hip hop has certainly proven to be a fruitful alternative to traditional educational practices, it also involves its own dilemmas and challenges.

Intersectional LGBTQ+ Identities: Hip-Hop Pedagogy for Black Queer Self-Expression

An educator shares ways to implement and learn about hip-hop pedagogy.

You must learn: sampling critical hip hop pedagogy in communication education spaces

ABSTRACT Critical communication pedagogies in universities are important because they teach students how communication processes produce social difference and social justice activism. To keep these pedagogical aims relevant to younger generations and promote open instructional practices, the pedagogies can benefit from an injection of culturally responsive approaches that engage college students today. This article reflects on the fusion of ‘critical hip hop pedagogy’ into my own communication teaching praxis through a course I developed, ‘Hip Hop Culture, Communication, and Social Change.’ I examine four core objectives that critical hip hop pedagogy fosters in educational spaces. These include challenging traditional white supremacist paradigms, grounding an intersectional analysis of identities and oppression, focusing on local capacity building and empowerment, and the use of trans-disciplinary scholarship and media. I conclude with ten teaching tenets that would strengthen the integration of critical hip hop pedagogy into communication education spaces.

"An Art of Truth in Things": Confronting Hiphop Illiteracies in Writing Classrooms at Predominantly White Colleges and Universities

This article interrogates how hiphop composition pedagogies can interrupt what the author terms the "hiphop illiteracies" that circulate in predominantly white institutions (PWIs). An analysis of four college writing classrooms that integrate hiphop texts at one PWI reveals pervasive anti-Blackness in student attitudes, but also in the research and course design as well as in department-mandated course texts. The analysis demonstrates the need for writing pedagogies that name and teach Black language, writing, and meaning-making practices while also asking students, teachers, and administrators to reflexively examine their own identities' locations vis-a-vis those practices. The author advocates a reflexive pedagogy that asks students to locate themselves vis-a-vis power as a starting point for investigations of language and culture. The author concludes that hiphop pedagogies have significant critical social justice possibilities in institutionally white educational contexts, but these benefits are not automatic and demand pedagogies of reflexivity, sociolinguistics, and intersectional feminism.

Reframing civic education through hip-hop artistic practices: an empowerment and equity based learning model for black adolescents

ABSTRACT Using the Connected Learning framework as a conceptual lens, this study utilises interviews and focus groups to explore classroom outcomes of and Hip-Hop Music Education programme piloted within two predominantly African American urban elementary schools. Three specific themes that emerged within post-program discussions with participants were that the program’s critical elements were that it: a) valued student enthusiasm for Hip-Hop music culture and centred discussions of its current social climate as appropriate for the academic setting, b) provided mentorship to see music as an agent for social change and c) nurtured their Hip-Hop identities in ways that were impactful for their individual trajectories. These findings suggest that Hip-Hop education programmes can be supportive to Black youths’ critical thinking, individual empowerment and understanding of community. To conclude, I argue that participation in Hip-Hop Based Education programs are a multi-dimensional asset that can empower Black youths for the media literacy education necessary to navigate their social, civic, personal, academic and professional lives.

#HipHopEd: The Compilation on Hip-hop Education, Volume 1: Hip-hop as Education, Philosophy, and Practice

#HipHopEd: The Compilation on Hip-hop Education, Volume 1: Hip-hop as Education, Philosophy, and Practice

Exploring Hip-Hop Pedagogy for the Advancement of Girls of Color in Science

Female and male students perform equally well on science standardized tests, yet there are disparities in gender in most science-related fields. There are far fewer women from underrepresented backgrounds represented in science-related fields, as they are less likely to enroll in advanced science courses because of a perceived lack of positive science identity. Using a framework of cultural community capital, this study suggests that girls of color are able to develop a science identity and a deeper understanding of science content as a result of the implementation of a hip-hop pedagogy in an urban science classroom.

Serious with the Wordplay: Battle Rap as a Critical Literacy Site and Model

Critical scholars contend it must be the duty of those who are marginalized to create pedagogy that will empower themselves. As such, researchers continue to explore ways and means by which Black male students can engage with and enact literacy. While a significant amount of research has been conducted on hip-hop pedagogies and literacy, there lacks examination into how the specific element of battle rap functions as a location to cultivate the critical consciousness of students. This research seeks to highlight how the genre of battle rap can be a pedagogical tool of literary expression, while simultaneously shedding traditional standards of instruction which have constrained learning opportunities, particularly for Black male students. Critical literacy as a theoretical framework and critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a methodology are employed to advance battle rap as an effective instructional tool. Ultimately, this study seeks to privilege the educational experiences of Black male students and complex our interpretations of how language, literacy, and culture intersect and can be exercised in US classrooms.

Whoa.Nu: (Re)Constructing and Learning Swedish Hip-Hop Online

Whoa.nu started in 2000 as a community where members discussed all aspects of hip-hop in Sweden. The community became the most important place not only for discussions among members but also for releasing free albums and songs to the public and for arranging events. Moreover, the site was an educational hub for members to learn about hip-hop. The core of Whoa.nu was the community, wherein the communicating environment of members developed as artists, audience, and critics. Whoa.nu was not only a place for individuals’ learning processes and development but a place where Swedish hip-hop evolved and changed its regional frames, forming its own identity. The aim of this article was to present an analysis of the development of Whoa.nu as a learning platform for hip-hop in Sweden based on interviews with the two administrators of the site. Further, we wanted to use this as a steppingstone to discuss how listeners learned about popular music online during different eras. Two questions were at the forefront of this research: (1) How do the interviewees describe the internal views of the relation between how Whoa.nu and Swedish hip-hop changed over 13 years? and (2) how can Whoa.nu be understood as a learning environment? I henceforth present insights into how musical learning can happen outside of institutions and how Swedish hip-hop has grown from subculture to mainstream, which is how Whoa.nu outgrew itself. Hip-hop education is currently institutionalized in the same way that jazz and rock once were institutionalized. It went from being rebellious and subversive to being embraced by the larger society and integrated into academia. The results herein present a story of one example where musical learning in a subculture occurred. The insights presented, then, can help educators prepare for similar transformations of learning arenas in future musical subcultures. These insights could aid teachers and educators to assist students involved in music subcultures not discussed in schools. Hopefully, this article inspires additional ways of learning music.

Towards innovative teaching pedagogies in gender research: A review of a gender research methods class

This commentary examines the teaching of research methods in Women and Gender Studies in the Gender Studies Unit of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. It interrogates how the course has increased the awareness of students in the methods of conducting research and how the research they conduct has implications on marginalized populations. The course also highlights the need for a growing body of knowledge that engages the experience of black women in Africa and the African diaspora. The course draws the attention of students to the agency of women through the reading and teaching of various research methods in Gender Studies. An ethnographic approach is adopted using participant observation in the course covering a period of one semester. Also, a critical perspective is applied in discussing the particular epistemological standpoint deployed by the course instructor. In other words, the black feminist epistemology serves as an important strategy for increasing global-minded consciousness of how a course in gender research methods engages the agency of black women using Hip Hop pedagogy.
 Keywords: Gender Research Methods, Black Feminist Epistemology, Global-Minded, Black Consciousness, African Feminism.

Hip-Hop practice as pedagogy

The idea of Hip-Hop pedagogy for the classroom is in its third decade of existence. This work began with replacing traditional literary texts with Hip-Hop lyrics for close reading and analysis. How...