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This chapter challenges the notion that Black males in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are missing from the discipline and proposes a model that presents underrepresentation as a function of Black males being both intentionally undiscovered and/or deliberately disconnected from particular academic disciplines. Our work offers a tangible and implementable yet aligned theory/method/exemplar for supporting the STEM genius of Black males through a hip-hop development (HHD) approach that aligns with a unique pedagogical method rooted in hip-hop culture.

In this chapter, we describe a hip-hop based science program as an intervention that combats STEM undiscovery and disconnectedness. We suggest that this program (through its theoretical and methodological roots) provides a set of practices that have the potential to bolster both academic content knowledge and knowledge of self. We argue that this program supports the development of the students' full socioemotional selves – which is a necessary prerequisite to pursuing academic content knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the ways in which hip-hop pedagogies and literacies encouraged middle school students to explore performance poetry as a tool to “(w)right” the truth(s) about learning and living in their local and global communities.

Collaborative self-study research methodologies were used by the author, a black male teacher educator and hip-hop cultural insider, along with two white, female reading specialists and hip-hop cultural outsiders, to collect and analyze the practices and behaviors used in The Shop – an after-school hip-hop-based spoken word poetry club for middle school students in a small, urban public school district in Northeastern USA.

Three primary findings emerge: teachers with limited cultural and content knowledge of hip-hop may struggle to negotiate real and perceived curricular constraints associated with using pedagogies with hip-hop texts and aesthetics in traditional school contexts, the intersections of teachers’ racial, cultural and gender identities informed the respective practices and behaviors in a number of interesting ways, and using hip-hop pedagogies for social justice in public schools requires a delicate balance of both transparency and discretion on the part of teachers.

Study findings are salient for in- and pre-service English teachers and English educators, as they offer insights and reflections on the instructional and relational challenges cultural outsiders may face when using hip-hop culture to create spaces and opportunities for young people to talk back and speak truth to power.

This study aims to refocus the field of Hip Hop based education on youth identities and epistemologies rather than on the tangible artifacts of Hip Hop culture. It argues that centering classroom pedagogy and curriculum on youth self-actualization best supports the critical literacy development of students grappling with social and structural inequities within an ever-evolving youth and media culture.

Building upon previous literature on critical literacy, Hip Hop pedagogy and adolescent identity formation, this paper shares data from a semester-long teacher–researcher case study of a high school Hip Hop literature and culture class to explore how young people develop critical literacies and self-actualizing practices through a critical study of youth culture.

For youth engaged in Hip Hop culture, co-constructing spaces to discuss their consumption of popular media and culture in class allows them to openly grapple with questions of identity, provide support for each other in dealing with these questions and reflect more critically upon their self-constructed, performed and perceived identities.

This form of English education challenges traditional notions of teaching and learning as it positions students as co-creators of curriculum and as part of the curriculum itself. Building on research that frames Hip Hop pedagogy as a culturally relevant tool for engaging urban youth, this paper argues that educators should approach critical Hip Hop literacy development as a means by which young people across diverse educational and social backgrounds come to know themselves and others as part of the process of self-actualization and critical resistance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the designed cultural ecology of a hip-hop and computational science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) camp and the ways in which that ecology contributed to culturally sustaining learning experiences for middle school youth. In using the principles of hip-hop as a CSP for design, the authors question how and what practices were supported or emerged and how they became resources for youth engagement in the space.

The overall methodology was design research. Through interpretive analysis, it uses an example of four Black girls participating in the camp as they build a computer-controlled DJ battle station.

Through a close examination of youth interactions in the designed environment – looking at their communication, spatial arrangements, choices and uses of materials and tools during collaborative project work – the authors show how a learning ecology, designed based on hip-hop and computational practices and shaped by the history and practices of the dance center where the program was held, provided access to ideational, relational, spatial and material resources that became relevant to learning through computational making. The authors also show how youth engagement in the hip-hop computational making learning ecology allowed practices to emerge that led to expansive learning experiences that redefine what it means to engage in computing.

Implications include how such ecologies might arrange relations of ideas, tools, materials, space and people to support learning and positive identity development.

Supporting culturally sustaining computational STEM pedagogies, the article argues two original points in informal youth learning 1) an expanded definition of computing based on making grammars and the cultural practices of hip-hop, and 2) attention to cultural ecologies in designing and understanding computational STEM learning environments.

This paper aims to examine how a Black male teacher made sense of the ways racism and white supremacy function in schools and constrains his practice by addressing the question: How does a culturally relevant Black male teacher engage a racial perspective in his pedagogy and make sense of the socio-political context of his practice?

This qualitative case study draws its data from semi-structured interviews and participant observations and was situated within a transfer high school in the Northeastern region of the USA.

This study elucidates the ways in which a Black male teacher’s racial literacy enabled him to make sense of the socio-political context of his school, the profession and help his Black male students negotiate how they are racialized in schools and society.

This paper closes with a call for additional research that further examines the relationship racial literacy plays in retaining teachers of color in the profession and for racial literacy to be positioned as a vital component of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in both teacher education and professional development.

This study contributes to the literature on critical Black male teachers by forwarding a framework that helps us to understand how they engage in transformative work within assimilationist educational spaces.

This paper aims to argue that providing youth of color with opportunities to explore content while reflecting on and sharing mental health concerns is an under-focused dimension of teaching and learning that has the potential to positively impact these students’ academic achievement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines

This paper used a qualitative study to interrogate a teaching/learning model through a hip-hop-based science program.

Because urban youth of color are traditionally most disengaged in STEM and also the ones who are the least likely to seek or be provided with mental health tools/services, it is suggested that there is a connection between their low academic achievement and the absence of opportunities for them to address emotions that impact their academic success. Furthermore, if these youths come from communities where mental health stressors are highly prevalent, and teaching is most restrictive, a model for teaching that considers practices that address both their academic and mental health needs becomes necessary.

This work does not intend to devalue or undermine the role of school counselors or traditional teachers. It is believed that the role of the school counselor or social worker when youths identify themes that go beyond the scope of personal challenges is significant and that these professionals should be made available when engaging in this type of work. It is also believed that the educator who may not be privy to hip-hop can successfully engage in this type of activity with STEM students. Finally, the use of science as an exemplar for engaging in this work does not indicate that the other STEM disciplines cannot or should not explore this type of model.

The paper outlines a model that other educators/researchers may use and suggests ways that this brand of research may be implemented by scholars across the country.

Through the implementation of the hip-hop-based science program as an intervention in science classrooms, students are provided the opportunity to bolster science content knowledge and knowledge of self. In addition, utilizing the hip-hop-based science program created an avenue for teachers to develop better understanding of students and their full socioemotional selves. This is especially necessary in STEM education where perceptions of students’ decisions to not engage in the disciplines are directly related to our collective unwillingness to present the subject matter in a way that goes beyond the glorification of its stoic and “old white” history.

This paper suggests a new dimension of STEM research through an exploration of hip-hop culture and youth emotions.

The proliferation of zero-tolerance behavioral policies and the presence of school resource officers (SROs) are receiving justifiable scrutiny for the deleterious effects they have on students’ functioning. While many have argued the convergence of these policies thwart the development of Black and Latino boys, critiques examining the experiences of Black girls are scant. Disaggregated disciplinary data from across the country reveal “… black girls are suspended at higher rates (12%) than girls of any other race or ethnicity and most boys …” (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2014, p. 1) suggesting that when it comes to schooling, Black girls are, indeed, “pushed out, overpoliced and underprotected” (Crenshaw, Ocen, & Nanda, 2015, p. 1). The authors of this chapter argue that youth advocates can use hip-hop culture, a tradition rich with resistant prose, to develop critical consciousness and engage Black girls in discussion about socially contrived binaries that reinforce the STPP. The authors demonstrate how the anti-oppressive lyrics of women emcees (e.g., Rapsody, Sa-Roc) can foster therapeutic alliances and dialogues with young Black girls, and how these lyrics might serve to inspire Black girls in composing their own counterhegemonic autobiographical narratives to resist the school-to-prison pipeline.

This chapter discusses how young Black people produce social agency through the sphere of culture, based on hip-hop. Divided into two parts, it surveys theses and dissertations produced in Brazilian universities on the subject in the last ten years. In a second moment, it proposes a research methodology that takes young people as narrators of their social experiences, emphasizing how they think about the school space. The work is an exploratory study and seeks the interposition between formal schooling and the cultural practices of hip-hoppers. It intends to affirm hip-hop as a power, an affirmative form of an ethic of life, a way of life, and a way of escaping the established places for poor, Black young people from the suburbs. It is also intended to show how hip-hop, a marginal culture, has triggered a game of cultural positions within the school and displaced provisions of power.

This paper builds upon a new era of research seeking to understand variability in how desirable outcomes result from engaging rap music as a health enhancing artifact. More specifically, the study explores the music mediated pathways to individual and community well-being. The study emphasizes female music engagement. Quantitative methods are used to examine listening habits and preferences associated with empowering rap music engagement among a female sample of 202 university students using an a priori established path analysis model. Results echo prior research that suggests the functional value of music in helping to define the self independently and articulate one’s social identity within the context of community (Dixon, Zhang, & Conrad, 2009; Hill, 2009; Travis & Bowman, 2012). Specifically, results suggest that among females in this sample, (a) their appropriation of rap music can be empowering, (b) specific factors play a significant role in determining the difference between females that feel more or less empowered from their interactions with rap music, and (c) female listeners were more likely to appropriate rap music for personal and community growth if it was their favorite music type, if they listened often, and if they tended to listen alone more often than with friends. These research findings offer promising routes for more in depth qualitative analysis to help uncover the nuances of preferred engagement strategies and to help define the subjective lived experiences that lead to feeling empowered by music to act toward positive change for oneself and others. Practical results indicate the possibility for gender-specific education, therapeutic or empowerment-based programs that utilize rap music as a rubric.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2018.

The paper provides a brief description of all 422 sources, and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and anyone interested as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.