Critical Hip-Hop Language Pedagogies: A Cultural Cypher on Language, Race, and Education

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Reenvisioning Hip-Hop Education: Post-Pandemic Classroom Design and Cultural Cyphers in Education (Table 12)

Abstract

In this paper, an intergenerational group of co-authors discuss language, race, and education through the lens of Hip Hop. Speaking from their perspectives as teachers, scholars, researchers, poets, spiritual leaders, and cultural workers, their experiences speak to the importance of sustaining a Black linguistic consciousness within and outside of classrooms where students experience Anti-Black Linguistic Racism. This intergenerational dialogue and critical cultural cypher (Williams, 2009) reflects the linguistic counter-space the authors co-constructed through Hip Hop and spoken word, at a high school in the northeastern United States. The cypher addresses the article’s central question: What are critical Hip Hop language pedagogies and how do we sustain them to dismantle racial injustice in education?

Authors

• Brian Mooney, Fairleigh Dickinson University

• Joniesha Hickson

• Aaleah Oliver

• Jahvel Pierce

• April D. Baker-Bell, University of Michigan