When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong: Exploring the Struggles of Critical Hip-Hop Pedagogy

• In Event: 63.061 - Hip-Hop Pedagogy and Racial Battle Fatigue: The Untold Stories of Critical Educators

Abstract

According to Gosa and Fields (2012), “… Hip Hop Pedagogy typically refers to the application of teaching styles and classroom strategies that enhance both the ‘critical-ness’ and ‘cultural relevance’ of schooling with a social justice perspective” (p. 4). Since hip-hop based education (HHBE) is predicated on the theories of critical pedagogy, a practice that has yet to reach mainstream education on a large scale, hip-hop education has numerous barriers that it must face within mainstream, academic settings. Just as with critical pedagogy, HHBE is much more idealized in theory than it is in practice. Gosa and Fields (2012) state, “There is an interesting misalignment between the HHBE scholarship and the actual use of hip hop in schools” (p. 20). Similarly, Ellsworth (1989) found that the scholarship on critical pedagogy operated at a “high level of abstraction” (p. 300) and was largely unhelpful in enacting strategies of criticality and empowerment in the classroom. Employing such radical approaches to teaching in an academic environment that is still rooted in traditional school structure poses challenges that at times threaten the very idea of liberation and empowerment that it seeks to offer (Ellsworth, 1989; Shor, 1996; Gosa & Fields, 2012).
The data discussed in this paper is derived from two qualitative teacher-researcher case studies: one in a class entitled, “Hip Hop Literature and Culture,” a semester-long English elective offered to students in grades 10-12 in a public high school in New York. The data for this project consisted of audio-recorded class discussions and presentations, teacher-researcher memos, video-recorded interviews, focus group interviews, and collected student work. The second study was conducted in a weekly hip-hop program designed to re-engage “at risk” youth in a public, urban high school in Connecticut. The data for this study was collected from one-on-one interviews and field notes. Both classes were designed to be “emancipatory” spaces, in which student voice and experience would drive class curriculum.
While individual students and classrooms are unique and will carry their own narratives, there are both internal and external conflicts that the authors encountered in teaching critical literacy that were reflective of broader issues in critical pedagogy and hip-hop education. While some of these conflicts have been discussed in previous literature, most have yet to be fully explored or resolved, and will continue to persist as long as victory narratives remain the dominant voice in research on HHBE. One conclusion that was derived from these studies is that even the most well-intentioned hip-hop educators may inadvertently uphold the conditions of mainstream classroom instruction even in classrooms focused on youth empowerment. Does bringing hip-hop into an academic space truly empower students or does it ultimately “re-enforce the ‘hidden’ culture of power in the classroom and existing norms of schooling?” (Gosa & Fields, 2012, p. 3). This paper highlights tensions that are implicit in the practical application of hip-hop pedagogy that seeks to challenge traditional norms of teaching and learning.

Authors

• Lauren Kelly, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Don C. Sawyer, Quinnipiac University