Speaker: Silhouette Bushay, King's College London

Hip-Hop culture is misunderstood; its scope is generally confined to entertainment and business. However, it has proven to be an effective approach to producing desirable learning outcomes in the US across an array of contexts (Seidel, 2011; Lamont Hill & Petchauer, 2013; Emdin, 2016).This extends to both informal and formal settings enhancing a range of academic skills, such as critical thinking and critical media literacy.

Hip-Hop culture is a global phenomenon and the UK has been consuming and producing both the culture and by-products since the 1980s, yet UK teacher education and related disciplines tend not to explicitly explore or embrace it as a viable pedagogy for formal education.

This paper explores hip hop’s potential to enhance teacher-student intercultural acumen, and to transform teaching and learning experiences of secondary school pupils and aspiring teacher education students in UK higher education.