Reimaging Youth and Education Through Indigenous Hip-Hop Pedagogues and the Beat Nation

• In Event: Constructing Knowledge and Promoting Social Change: Cutting Edge Issues in Social Justice

Abstract

Two conflicting ideas undergird the possibilities for social justice through education. First, critical knowledge is essential in the quest for liberation. Second, as the conference theme indicates, knowledge alone is insufficient. By presenting results from a qualitative study of The Beat Nation, this presentation offers a means of exploring ways to bridge the conceptual gap between these two ideas, specifically with respect for the need for educators to re-imagine pedagogies for new generations and the youth cultures they are producing. The Beat Nation exists as a space where youth culture, First Nation indigenous culture, and popular culture intersect. Here, youth work to expose their enacted identities, through hip-hop, in a composite that honors their experiences as whole, unique individuals.

Authors

• Julie Gorlewski, SUNY - College at New Paltz

• Bradley J. Porfilio, California State University - East Bay