Black Music Aesthetics (BMA), guided by conceptual approaches grounded in African belief systems, are found in the structure and performance practices of Black musics. Music education in American society leans strongly toward Western European aesthetics, which includes: the centrality of rhythm, pitch, and harmony to musical understanding; a…

This article theorizes Hip Hop as Black liberatory practice by explicating the links between Hip Hop knowledges, pedagogies, and futures. I draw on multiple research and classroom experiences, including co-teaching a course with pioneering Hip Hop artist Chuck D of Public Enemy. The course examined Hip Hop culture as an extension of Black freedom…

As we write this paper in late 2023, Advanced Placement (AP) Black history, psychology courses and the use of diverse literature written for children and young adults is being banned by many school districts across the United States. Educators are being threatened, sanctioned, reprimanded, and fired. Despite this, some teachers stand steadfast in…

Critical race studies in international higher education remains on the margins. More so are analyses of Black subjects (nations, institutions, people, etc.) and/or knowledge traditions. In particular, there remains a dearth of research centering Black subjects as not only the unit of analysis, but also agents in the internationalization of higher…

In this R. Freeman Butts Lecture, the authors engage this year's AESA theme, "Dreaming of Otherwise Worlds and Alternate Nows: Unsettling Colonialisms and Racism in the Social Foundations of Education," through a set of Black knowledge traditions and schools of thought and how these implicate our ideologies about education, specifically…

Research on African American youth's emotional development provides an incomplete understanding of the cultural influences that shape emotion-related skills such as emotion expression, regulation, and understanding. In this article, I propose the multiple cultural frameworks of triple quandary theory to characterize the nature of mainstream…

Black college students continue to face the specter of anti-Blackness which creates additional barriers to success and flourishing in higher education. This study investigates how instructors in higher education can provide racial equity to Black students in AANAPISI/HSI classrooms through counterspaces. We use culturally relevant pedagogy to…

In this article, the author shares research into five images by artists whose work responded to and helped shape the Black Power movement: Emory Douglas's "Don't Support the Greedy," Betye Saar's "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima," Barbara Jones-Hogu's "Relate to Your Heritage," Elizabeth Catlett's "Malcolm X Speaks…

Twenty-seven years ago, the documentary "Hoop Dreams" solidified a theory--that the world of athletics was one of the few places where adolescent Black males could find success. By the late 1990s, researchers were framing athletics as the next direction in the Civil Rights Movement. In this article, I argue that the historical framing of…

The work in this article (re)traces the nuances embedded within the aesthetics of the Wu-Tang Clan to draw attention to two theoretical, Wu-based concepts: "Shaolin" and "swarming." This article leans into fugivity and critical race theory (CRT) to demonstrate how hip-hop music can be a capacious avenue for theorizing alternate…

"Lift Every Voice and Sing," sometimes referred to as the Black National Anthem, has been sung everywhere from protests to concert halls in the United States for well over a century. The song's origins, however, come directly from the mind of educator James Weldon Johnson and the needs of his school community. This article recounts the…

Much of Black student life, understandably, is seen through a lens of resistance. Black people, given their societal position, are resistant in context. Yet, one cannot use resistance, by itself, to understand the expansive, dynamic nature of Black student life -- even in otherwise constricting contexts. In this paper, I wrestle with the central…

The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between culturally relevant Black American-sounding names and potential racial microaggressions within problem-solving scenarios in mathematics. Often, marginalized groups are unfairly characterized in society, leading to biased perceptions. Initially, I hypothesized that there would be no…

This purpose of this study was to determine the socio-cultural impact and parameters of Hip-Hop Based Education (HHBE) with the underlying goals of: a) detailing HHBE in relation to previously accepted education paradigms and philosophies; b) detailing the embedded nature of the language of hip-hop in the form of an amalgamation of African…

bell hooks described homeplace as a space for love, belonging and connection that actively resists the dominant narratives within white supremacy. This article highlights how hip hop culture and Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) led by school counselors can be used as a homeplace in schools, a space where students can speak on their…