Trap Civics: Amalgamating Critical Concious Learning with Joy for Critical Civic Education and Beyond

This project investigates the relationship between joy, critical consciousness, and critical civic learning that exist in critical hip hop pedagogy. In order to discover what is revealed about young people's collective definitions of joy, critical consciousness, and civic identity/literacy, I designed a methodology called Blackout Rap Transcription that draws from multiple qualitative forms of inquiry. This study looks at how the critical hip hop curriculum I designed and taught facilitated joyful consciousness and what that teaches us about liberatory social studies education. Joyful consciousness is language I have given to a quality in Black music that alchemizes narratives of pain into joy like Billie Holiday does in the song, Strange Fruit. Joyful Consciousness can be a pedagogical tool within the larger project of Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy, that can aid teachers in developing critical civic reasoning capacities in their students while prioritizing both an honest understanding of history and the emotional wellbeing of students. The questions that guide this study are: 1) How are students developing critical consciousness through joy in the Trap Civics pedagogical model? 2) What implications does this have for social justice social studies learning models? Initial findings suggest that when students write their own rap songs as opposed to just analyzing existing ones, it demonstrates new forms of civic literacy that positions students and knowledge producers as opposed to knowledge consumers. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]