Activating Hip-Hop Pedagogy in the Social Studies Classroom

While empirical studies on the use of hip-hop music in social studies spaces is limited, the work that has been done offers encouraging perspectives. Some research suggests that incorporating hip-hop lyrics into the classroom leads to increased student engagement and greater curricular relevance. Other scholars have centered hip-hop as a way to reject traditional notions of financial literacy. Author and academic Bettina Love developed a hip-hop informed civics curriculum. Hip-hop has a vast potential to inform social studies teaching and learning. In this article, Kelly R. Allen hopes to encourage other educators to think more deeply about how they can draw on hip-hop in their own practice.