Ren(Ed)gades of Funk: Hip-Hop as a Collaborative Pedagogical Approach

Ren(Ed)gades of Funk: Hip-Hop as a Collaborative Pedagogical Approach

Now renegades are the people with their own philosophies. They change the course of history. Everyday people like you and me. We're the renegades, we're the people. Renegades of Funk - Afrika Bambaataa.

For over 50 years, hip-hop culture has been a worldwide phenomenon. Extending the significance of hip-hop as an aesthetic form, hip-hop pedagogies have emerged as accepted approaches in mainstream schools, particularly in settings with marginalised and disengaged students. While there are numerous international examples of hip-hop pedagogy in educational contexts, the effectiveness of hip-hop pedagogy within the Australian education system has not been explored extensively. Additionally, hip-hop’s current influence on young people internationally and specifically in Australian society is difficult to ignore. Much of the current research on hip-hop pedagogy does not highlight how this approach can enable and extend the personal development and professional practice of educators. In this thesis, I expand consideration of the enactment of hip-hop pedagogy by examining the practices of educators in their professional practice. Specifically, I give attention to the nurturance of collaborative approaches and focus on the collective practice of an affinity group, which involves individuals relating together in a collaborative space based on their shared interests, aspirations and approaches. For this project, a group of educators, youth workers and artists convened as an affinity group to share rich accounts of practice and identify strategies for enacting hip-hop pedagogies in diverse educational contexts in Queensland, Australia. Data were collected through interviews, discussions and the collaborative, creative works and raps of the participants. This process, which involved group members writing and sometimes recording and performing their reflective rap compositions, challenged the traditional roles of the participants because they were encouraged to take on the role of ‘artisteducator’, in which hip-hop became both a pedagogical approach and a reflective professional practice. Powerful outcomes from the project included student and teacher engagement, improved relationships with educational settings, and the creation of a ‘safe space’ within the affinity group, which have implications for policy and practice in schools in Australia and elsewhere.