Connecting Black youth to critical media literacy through hip hop making in the music classroom

Abstract

This article is an ethnographic study of a hip hop-based music education programme for students within elementary school classrooms. Drawing on two years of fieldwork in two urban schools, this case study describes how hip hop song composition encouraged participants to make essential and critical reflections about media’s place in their personal lives, peer groups, families and communities. The findings of this study suggest that the social and cultural capital of making hip hop music can contribute to bolstering academic learning for Black youth. Implications from this study also suggest informal interests and social identities rooted in hip hop music can connect youth to pathways for professions in creative labour, high-capacity technological skills, civic-mindedness and critical media literacy that could also transcend the classroom.