Hip Hop as an Agent for Health and Wellbeing in Schools

Abstract

Abstr Abstract actHip Hop culture has shown an increasing presence in mainstream schooling over the last 15 years. This presence has taken many forms, including extracurricular programs, pedagogical tools, and whole-school approaches to student learning and development. Yet, discourse explicitly exploring the use of Hip Hop to facilitate wellbeing outcomes in schools remains limited. To explore the state of current research at this particular intersection, this paper presents a narrative synthesis of 22 research articles reporting on the use of Hip Hop interventions for wellbeing in school settings. Results indicated a growing rate of published research articles in this area, focus on health promotion for underprivileged students of colour in urban US settings, and the need for more methodologically sound research which critically engages with socio-political contexts. Nevertheless, important benefits were reported across studies, demonstrating the value of Hip Hop in promoting across the physical, social and mental wellbeing of students.

Exploring the Use of Hip Hop-Based Music Therapy to Address Trauma in Asylum Seeker and Unaccompanied Minor Migrant Youth

“…Hip Hop culture, which includes music (DJing/beat making), verbal expressions (rapping), visual arts (graffiti), and dance (breakdancing) (Rose, 1993), is gaining increasing attention in the creative arts therapy space (Travis et al, 2020). The academic discourse around the potential of Hip Hop culture in school and therapeutic spaces more generally has grown exponentially in recent decades (Crooke et al, 2020). A growing body of literature outlines several ways that Hip Hop modalities successfully engage youth from various backgrounds in school settings, given its inextricable links with global youth culture (Petchauer, 2009).…”

“…In 1998 the term Hip Hop Therapy was introduced by Tyson (2002) as an innovative therapeutic tool for at-risk and delinquent youth. The author focused on rap music's poetic and therapeutic impact, and he and many other scholars included the other three elements of Hip Hop to the Hip Hop Therapy concept (Crooke et al, 2020;Tyson, 2002). Since then, a range of seminal texts have been published, outlining Hip Hop's potential to engage culturally diverse youth populations and afford opportunities for addressing issues such as grief and other significant mental health conditions (Travis et al, 2019).…”

“…The facilitators who will play a part in the intervention process are advised to be active members of the local Hip Hop communities. Crooke et al (2020) highlighted the importance of having an active Hip Hop community member as a Hip Hop therapy facilitator in the intervention programs. All the facilitators and the therapist will receive an income from the project's funds.…”

“…All the facilitators and the therapist will receive an income from the project's funds. The facilitators are chosen for their possibility of being role models and their cultural relevancy to the participants to reframe the healthy behaviors, engage, and motivate the folks in the process of interventions (Crooke et al, 2020). Even though having someone who is not experienced as a mental health professional in the therapeutic space might present risk, this could be compensated by providing adequate trauma-informed training to the artists who are motivated to impact youth and society positively.…”

Does anime, idol culture bring depression? Structural analysis and deep learning on subcultural identity and various psychological outcomes

“…The reason we choose anime, idol culture is that although they comprise large proportion of youth entertainment in Japan, they commonly relate to stigmas such as “Dasai” or “Otaku” (Dasai refers to an out-of-fashion, unattractive appearance; Otaku describes people who are homebodies) and induce school-related problems like non-attendance, or isolation ( Leshner et al., 2018 ). Hip-hop, however, is a newly-controversial topic, with some endorsing its rebellious spirit while others relate it to youth delinquency ( Crooke et al., 2020 ; Robinson et al., 2018 ; Ter Bogt et al., 2013 ). By contrast, sporty and fashionable characters are endorsed among youth ( Ishii, 2014 ).…”