Hip Hop and Ya Don't Stop: Using Hip Hop to Engage Marginalized Youth in Contemporary Urban Classrooms in Canada

This study uses two research methodologies: retrospective life histories, and qualitative research method in the form of youth questionnaires to examine student beliefs and connections to hip hop culture as a tool for student engagement. Through open-ended questionnaires with ten Canadian urban youths in the City of Toronto, this qualitative study revealed concepts of identity, student engagement, isolation and inclusion. The purpose of the study was to provide an empowering place for youth to be understood and heard in relation to their own educational journeys, capturing both the positive and negative experiences they have encountered. As a result of the study, I, the researcher was able to locate and analyze my own passion for hip hop through the retrospective life history method. Hip hop offers an array of resources, knowledge and consciousness which students can transfer across academic disciplines. This study offers recommendations for using hip hop as pedagogy to engage marginalized youth and thus lead to less isolation and more success. In order to understand hip hop’s place in schools across Canada it is important to analyze educational policies, both past and present and how these policies ultimately affect the implementation of hip hop pedagogy, which was employed in this study