The work in this article (re)traces the nuances embedded within the aesthetics of the Wu-Tang Clan to draw attention to two theoretical, Wu-based concepts: "Shaolin" and "swarming." This article leans into fugivity and critical race theory (CRT) to demonstrate how hip-hop music can be a capacious avenue for theorizing alternate…

In my investigation of dance curricula in US higher education, the dance discipline's primary pedagogical concentrations in classical ballet and Eurocentric modern dance techniques implicitly signal their centrality to the development of any academically trained dancer. This focus, in turn, generalizes and essentializes other cultural and…

In the United States dance competition culture and commercial dance are both highly visible. Although connections between the two distinct dance worlds are implicitly present, they remain largely unexamined. To begin a conversation about how commercial dance and dance competition culture relate and their influence on dance education, this article…

Recently there has been a call to disrupt the continuous cycle of (re)production from within university-based programs through the development of transformative approaches rooted in the cultural norms of traditionally marginalized populations. This study aimed to explore how one such approach, critical hip-hop pedagogy (CHHP), manifests within the…

This article revisits the central impulse behind early advocacy for ethnographic approaches to hip hop--that critics should try as much as possible to limit their own certainties around what hip hop can and might mean. While ethnographic approaches can engender the kinds of personal dislocations that allow for this negotiation, they do not…

Since hip-hop first appeared in New York over 35 years ago, it has been associated with social activism and education. Accordingly, it is not surprising that academic institutions in universities and K-12 schools are interested in hip-hop. In this article, we will highlight the "hip-hop academisation" and map out a new direction in a…

One fundamental breakthrough in the field of hip-hop education in recent years is the shift from understanding hip-hop solely as content to understanding hip-hop also as aesthetic form. In this article, I chart the roots of this shift across disciplines and focus on what it might mean for the future of hip-hop education, pedagogy, and research in…

Critical participatory action research is a form of community engagement and knowledge generation which, when represented semiotically, may promote social transformation. In this paper, I describe a critical participatory action research project I undertook as a liberation psychologist and researcher in (post)colonial Jamaica. I summarise a…

In this article, we aim to develop a theoretical model to understand what we refer to as "musical gentrification" and to explore how this model might be applied to and inform music education research. We start from a Bourdieusian point of view, elaborating on the connections between social class and cultural capital, and then move on to…

This article offers one approach to exploring the question of in what sense music educators can speak of music and its moving power as spiritual by inquiring into what might count as a "musical spiritual experience" in emotional terms. The essay's analytic framework employs the distinction between two related concepts which I call the "shiver" and…

The second edition of "19 Urban Questions: Teaching in the City" adds new questions to those in the original volume. Continuing the developing conversation in urban education, the book is provocative in style and rich in detail. Emphasizing the complexity of urban education, Shirley R. Steinberg and the authors ask direct questions about what…

Objective: This study tests the validity of the Rap-music Attitude and Perception (RAP) Scale, a 1-page, 24-item measure of a person's thoughts and feelings surrounding the effects and content of rap music. The RAP was designed as a rapid assessment instrument for youth programs and practitioners using rap music and hip hop culture in their work…

Today, "connoisseurship" conjures up images of fusty old men in tweeds arguing over ancient etchings or perhaps the patter of opera buffs as they pass bejeweled into the night. Connoisseurship is neither fashionable nor politically correct. It signifies a focus on works of art rather than issues of power and is foreign to a cultural…