Schooling Hip-Hop

This book brings together veteran and emerging scholars from a variety of fields to chart new territory for hip-hop based education. Looking beyond rap music and the English language arts classroom, innovative chapters unpack the theory and practice of hip-hop based education in science, social studies, college composition, teacher education, and other fields. Authors consider not only the curricular aspects of hip-hop but also how its deeper aesthetics such as improvisational freestyling and competitive battling can shape teaching and learning in both secondary and higher education classrooms. Schooling Hip-Hop will spark new and creative uses of hip-hop culture in a variety of educational settings.

Marc Lamont Hill is an associate professor of English education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the author of the award-winning Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life. He received the 2023 AERA Social Justice in Education Award. Emery Petchauer is an assistant professor of urban education in the Teacher Development and Educational Studies Department at Oakland University, and the author of Hip-Hop Culture in College Students’ Lives.

"Hill and Petchauer are to be commended for pushing the envelope and stepping up to the challenge of taking Hip-Hop Based Education to the next level."
—Geneva Smitherman, Michigan State University

“Hip-hop education offers the real possibility of exchange. And in exchange is the possibility of transformation. That is where the authors in this volume begin.” —From the Foreword by Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, executive director, Institute for Diversity in the Arts, Stanford University

"Hip-hop has come of age on the broader social and cultural scene. However, it is still in its infancy in the academy and school classrooms. Hill and Petchauer have assembled a powerful group of scholars who provide elegantly theoretical and practically significant ways to consider hip-hop as an important pedagogical strategy. This volume is a wonderful reminder that 'stakes is high!'"
—Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Professor in Urban Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"I believe that a book like this is incredibly important to the understanding and development of not only musical but cultural studies. Since hip-hop is truly a microcosm for so many other things in our world, the possibilities for creating a stream of thought that doesn't end in the marginalization and exploitation of the culture is a miracle alone. I hope this is just the beginning."
— Immortal Technique, hip-hop artist and producer

2023 AERA Social Justice in Education Award to Marc Lamont Hill