Creating Spaces for Urban Youth: The Emergence of Culturally Responsive (Hip-Hop) School Leadership and Pedagogy

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Khalifa
Keyword(s):  
Identity Development ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Urban Youth ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Student Identities

AbstractLadson-Billings, Gay and among others have demonstrated the strong need for educational curriculum and practice to respond to the specific academic, cultural, and social needs of culturally unique, minoritized students. This article focuses on culturally responsive leadership practices for students with Hip-Hop identity performatives. This research uses theoretical frameworks from culturally relevant pedagogies and the scholarship that addresses how young students negotiate, perform, and reinvent and reestablish themselves through Hip-Hop culture, literacy, and identity. Such scholarship situates Hip-Hop pedagogies and student identity. This 2-year ethnographic study of an alternative school reports on how a culturally responsive school leader recognized and validated Hip-Hop student identities. Though he was somewhat removed from the Hip-Hop performative himself, the principal was able to create a safe space in which these student identities were able to exist, and in doing so, prevent the visceral impulse toward marginalization and exclusionary practice of Black and Latino Hip-Hop students that so many of his teachers possessed. Thus, the study discusses leadership theory, as it answers the following research question: How can urban school leaders play a role in forging a space for Hip-Hop identity development in the schools they lead? Secondarily it asks – given the tensions and contestations in representations of Hip-Hop music – if they should actually do this, and if so, what are the characteristics of such leadership?

Fostering Cultural Responsiveness in an Urban High School: A Case Study

2021 ◽  
pp. 019263652110365
Author(s):  
Jay Paredes Scribner ◽  
Donna H. Weingand ◽  
Karen Leigh Sanzo
Keyword(s):  
School Culture ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Cultural Responsiveness ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Student Needs ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Teacher Needs

Scholars and practitioners have increasingly recognized the role of culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL). However, few studies have applied recent comprehensive CRSL theoretical frameworks. This in-depth case study explores how a school leader understands and shapes a school culture to be increasingly culturally responsive to students. Utilizing recent conceptualizations of CRSL as a lens, two major findings were developed. First, the principal’s understanding of what it means to be a culturally responsive leader is centered on the student experience: meeting basic needs, seeking “vertical” engagement, and transforming student world views. Second, to meet those student needs the principal practiced differentiated instructional leadership according to individual teacher needs and oriented to fostering a culturally responsive school culture. We suggest future research carefully examine (1) the interplay of beliefs, dispositions, and values in CRSL play, and (2) how CRSL (where it exists) manifests as an organizational.

The Impact of Identity and Culturally Responsive School Leadership: Leaders of Schools and Programs for the Deaf

2019 ◽  
pp. 120-144
Author(s):  
Catherine A. O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Identity Development ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
The United States ◽  
Deaf Culture ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Deaf Students ◽  
Schools For The Deaf ◽  
Almost All

This chapter explores the relationship between culturally responsive school leadership and school culture in schools for the deaf. The author demonstrates how Deaf culture, identity, and culturally responsive school leadership intertwine and influence each other. This chapter reports on observations of and interviews with leaders in six schools for the deaf in the United States. Many current school leaders serving Deaf children lack knowledge and understanding of Deaf culture and Deaf identity. Culturally responsive leaders in the schools for the deaf that were studied were almost all part of Deaf culture. If school leaders are to better meet the needs deaf students’ education and identity development, they must recognize the students’ cultures and identities. The author makes a plea for better equipping potential principals and other leaders of schools for the deaf.

Promoting Academic Literacy with Urban Youth through Engaging Hip-Hop Culture

2002 ◽  
Vol 91 (6) ◽  
pp. 88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Morrell ◽  
Jeffrey M. R. Duncan-Andrade
Keyword(s):  
Urban Youth ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Hip Hop Culture

After the Blackbird Whistles: Listening to Silence in Classrooms

2010 ◽  
Vol 112 (11) ◽  
pp. 2833-2849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Schultz
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
School Students ◽  
Student Talk ◽  
The Individual

Background/Context Students spend a large part of their time in schools in silence. However, teachers tend to spend most of their time attending to student talk. Anthropological and linguistic research has contributed to an understanding of silence in particular communities, offering explanations for students’ silence in school. This research raised questions about the silence of marginalized groups of students in classrooms, highlighting teachers’ role in this silencing and drawing on limited meanings of silence. More recently, research on silence has conceptualized silence as a part of a continuum. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this project was to review existing literature and draw on two longitudinal research studies to understand the functions and uses of silence in everyday classroom practice. I explore the question, How might paying attention to the productivity of student silence and the possibilities it contains add to our understanding of student silence in educational settings? Silence holds multiple meanings for individuals within and across racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. However, in schools, silence is often assigned a limited number of meanings. This article seeks to add to educators’ and researchers’ tools for interpreting classroom silence. Research Design The article is based on two longitudinal qualitative studies. The first was an ethnographic study of the literacy practices of high school students in a multiracial high school on the West Coast. This study was designed with the goal of learning about adolescents’ literacy practices in and out of school during their final year of high school and in their first few years as high school graduates. The second study documents discourses of race and race relations in a postdesegregated middle school. The goal of this 3-year study was to gather the missing student perspectives on their racialized experiences in school during the desegregation time period. Conclusions/Recommendations Understanding the role of silence for the individual and the class as a whole is a complex process that may require new ways of conceptualizing listening. I conclude that an understanding of the meanings of silence through the practice of careful listening and inquiry shifts a teacher's practice and changes a teacher's understanding of students’ participation. I suggest that teachers redefine participation in classrooms to include silence.

scholarly journals Pathways of Professional Identity Development: A Grounded Theory of Female School Principals

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Lina Baira
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Identity Development ◽  
Professional Identity ◽  
Power Distribution ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
Professional Identity Development ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Education Management

This paper examines a female school principal’s perceptions of professional identity development. Recently education management has undergone the process of managerial transformation whereas new requirements and standards have been raised for school principals. Managerial transformations have been influenced by political, economic and cultural factors that (re)shaped school principals’ professional identities. These social identity changes are especially important in the shift of managerial paradigms that evoke challenges in social identification processes. Two major approaches to professional identity include a feminist standpoint and a social construction approach. The former claims that females are underrepresented as leaders in most facets of work life due to gender role stereotypes, prejudices and unequal power distribution. The latter subscribes to the notion that person’s identities are multiple and fluid due to their cultural, historic, and social situatedness. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the pathways of female school principals’ professional identity development. The main research question of this study was how professional identity development is described by female school principals. The study focuses on two in-depth interviews with experienced school principals. The constructivist grounded theory methodology has been applied for the research. Comparative analysis allowed to generate analytic units ranging from small to large and from micro (individual), and meso (organizational) to macro (regional, national or worldwide) levels in disclosing professional identity development process. Fifteen themes comprised the results of the interview research unfolding the essential phenomenon of professional identity development.

“Airplanes Not Walls”: Broaching Unauthorized (Im)migration and Schooling in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Sarah Gallo ◽  
Andrea Ortiz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
School Teacher ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Fifth Grade ◽  
Educational Practices ◽  
Academic Year ◽  
Grade Classroom

Background/Context This article builds on U.S.-based research on undocumented status and schooling to examine how an elementary school teacher in Mexico successfully integrates transnational students’ experiences related to unauthorized (im)migration into the classroom. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study Drawing on a politicized funds of knowledge framework, we focus on an exceptional fifth-grade teacher's curricular, pedagogical, and relational decisions to provide concrete examples of how educators on both sides of the border can carefully integrate students’ politicized experiences into their classrooms. Setting This research took place in a semirural fifth-grade classroom in Central Mexico during the 2016–2017 academic year, when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Population/Participants/Subjects This article focuses on the routine educational practices within a single fifth-grade classroom in a highly transnational Central Mexican town. Participants included a binational student who had recently relocated to Mexico because of U.S.-based immigration policies, her peers from transnational families with ties to the United States, and their fifth-grade teacher. Research Design This school-based ethnographic study involved weekly participant observation and video recording of routine activities in Profe Julio's fifth-grade classroom during the 2016–2017 academic year. Observations were triangulated with additional data sources such as interviews (with educators, binational students, and binational caregivers) and artifacts (such as homework assignments and student writing). Findings/Results Through a close examination of a fifth-grade classroom in Mexico, we illustrate how the teacher brought students’ (im)migration experiences into school by leveraging openings in the curriculum, developing interpersonal relationships of care, and engaging in a range of pedagogical moves. Conclusions/Recommendations We discuss how this teacher's educational practices could be carefully tailored to U.S. classrooms within the current anti-immigrant context. These practices include building relationships of care, looking for openings in the curriculum, providing academic distance, prioritizing teachers as learners, and working with school leadership for guidance on navigating politicized topics under the current U.S. administration.

Hip-Hop, the “Obama Effect,” and Urban Science Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Emdin ◽  
Okhee Lee
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Urban Youth ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Science Classrooms ◽  
Urban Science Education ◽  
Hip Hop Culture ◽  
Urban Science ◽  
Science Educators

Background/Context With the ever increasing diversity of schools, and the persistent need to develop teaching strategies for the students who attend today's urban schools, hip-hop culture has been proposed to be a means through which urban youth can find success in school. As a result, studies of the role of hip-hop in urban education have grown in visibility. Research targeted toward understanding the involvement of urban youth in hip-hop and finding ways to connect them to school often rest primarily on the role of rap lyrics and focus exclusively on language arts and social studies classes. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this article is to move beyond the existing research on science education by utilizing an ongoing study to interrogate hip-hop culture, its relation to the “Obama effect,” and the role of hip-hop culture in creating new possibilities for urban youth in science. The discussion of hip-hop in urban schooling is grounded in the concept of social capital to explain what makes hip-hop youth who they are and how this knowledge can become a tool for supporting their academic success. Specifically, the discussion is based on theoretical constructs related to hip-hop in urban settings, including social networks, identity, and realness and emotional energy. Research Design To explore the complexities of hip-hop and the impact of the artifacts it generates on urban science education, we examined qualitative data illustrating the enactment of hip-hopness or a hip-hop identity in urban science classrooms. Specifically, we examined the “Obama effect” and its connection to hip-hop and science education. Findings The findings indicate that when teachers bring hip-hop into their science instruction, certain markers of interest and involvement that were previously absent from science classrooms become visible. Especially, the examples of the Obama effect in urban high school science classrooms in this article illustrate that science educators can strengthen hip-hop youth's connections to school and science by consistently using the science-related decisions President Obama is making as opportunities to teach science. Conclusions By engaging in a concerted focus on hip-hop culture, science educators can connect urban youth to science in ways that generate a genuine recognition of who they are, an appreciation of their motivation for academic success, and an understanding of how to capitalize on hip-hop culture for their identities as science learners. Such efforts can eventually lead urban youth to become “the best and brightest” in the science classroom and pursue careers in science-related fields.

Social Media and Identity

2019 ◽  
pp. 1365-1386
Author(s):  
Erika Melonashi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Identity Development ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Media And Identity

The present chapter aims to explore the relationship between social media and identity by reviewing theoretical frameworks as well as empirical studies on the topic. Considering the complexity of the concept of identity, a multidisciplinary theoretical approach is provided, including Psychological Theories, Sociological Theories and Communication Theories. These theories are revisited in the context of online identity formation and communication through social media. Different aspects of identity such as gender identity, professional identity, political identity etc., are discussed and illustrated through empirical studies in the field. Moreover, the role of social media as a factor that might either promote or hinder identity development is also discussed (e.g., phenomena such as cyber-bulling and internet addiction). Finally recommendations and suggestions for future research are provided, including the need for multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks to the investigation of the relationships between social media and identity.

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