Book dossier

Hip-hop culture in college students' lives

by Emery Petchauer

"From Ciphers to Classrooms explores how diverse groups of young adults embody hip-hop culture and actively connect it to their lives on college campuses. Instead of looking at hip-hop solely as content (i.e., rap music) for educators to use for pedagogical purposes, this book argues that hip-hop is a cultural site created by young adults, both male and female, and from multiple ethnic backgrounds that possesses a cultural logic, habits of mind, and "ways of doing." The analytical lens extends beyond rap music, school curricula, and African American adolescents to include other creative activities such as dance, graffiti art, DJing, spoken word poetry, music production, and hip-hop based organizations on campus.College campuses have become rich sites of hip-hop culture and knowledge production. Most scholarly accounts of hip-hop, though, focus on K-12 educational settings, and many scholars have tended to overlook hip-hop, and popular culture more generally, at the higher education level. This book helps fill this gap, providing important insights for researchers and personnel working with college students. The author pushes researchers and practitioners to contemplate the nuanced, textured, and diverse ways that young adults connect the meaningful cultural sites in their lives to educational pursuits in college"--