Hip Hop as Critical Pedagogy: Re-Imagining Education

Abstract

Hip hop as a form of Black popular culture can help to create opportunities to generate new knowledge on how to re-imagine a culturally sustaining pedagogy for Black youth. In this literature review, I examine hip hop as an example of critical pedagogy that can be used to reframe and re-imagine learning and actively addresses the various forms of systemic racism and anti-Black oppression. Research has explored the impact of hip hop on youth's identity construction. Less research explores hip hop as a form of critical pedagogy. I draw on participatory methods to inquire how they are used to radically re-imagine a culturally sustaining and empowering vision. As critical pedagogy, hip hop can become a text and curriculum for revolutionary and transformative opportunities to critically interrogate intersecting forms of systemic racism while opening spaces for new generative learning by and for Black youth.