Whose Literacies Have Capital? Using Hip-Hop and Spoken Word for Youth-Led Critical Social Research

• In Event: 21.020 - Reimagining Intellectualism: Challenging Academia to Sustain Pluralistic Productions of Knowledge

Abstract

This study analyzes the literate identities of youth researchers within an out-of-school Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) seminar where qualitative research skills are taught through hip hop and spoken word (Mirra et al., 2016). I explore how pedagogical strategies emerging from hip hop and spoken word 1) reimagine the qualitative inquiry process 2) reimagine content instruction, and 3) challenge dominant conceptions of intellectualism. Research questions include: How are hip hop and spoken word leveraged for developing critical participation and critical consciousness in this seminar? What is the capacity of hip hop and spoken word to innovate the qualitative inquiry process? How do hip-hop and spoken word literacy practices disrupt and/or reinforce in-school norms?
I situate myself within Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in effort to examine the critical cultivation of multiple literacy practices to challenge the ethos of traditional in-school norms through hip-hop and spoken word literacy practices; Critical Theory to illuminate the systems of power that sustain educational inequity for marginalized communities; and Prophetic Criticism (Prier, 2017) to make explicit the dynamism of Black theoretical and epistemological orientations as central to framing my work. Viewing the seminar as a social space of practice (Gutierrez, 2008) that informs and engages the students’ literate identities, I utilized Critical Ethnographic methods and Critical Discourse Analysis to examine salient literacy events (Brice Heath, 1983) that occurred throughout the seminar. Data sources include video, audio session recordings, interviews, field notes, and student artifacts.
Findings illustrate how youth of color navigate multiple literacies for access, safety, power, and self-representation against the backdrop of a society plagued with racial injustice. I demonstrate that the multiple literacy practices employed by youth researchers meaningfully shaped their qualitative inquiry process, and I argue for the capacity of multiple literacies to contribute to educational equity for students of color by 1) challenging the ethos of traditional classroom environments, 2) shaping methodological approaches, and 3) reimagining content instruction. Such work rests on the conviction that intellectual and rhetorical rigor exist robustly in the everyday linguistic and cultural repertoires of youth, yet remain largely ignored within the classroom.

Author

• Jamila Lyiscott, University of Massachusetts – Amherst