Chapter 5: Hip-Hop Pedagogy

Social studies curriculum too often prioritizes narratives that applaud our democracy and over emphasize an individual citizen’s power to “participate.” The teaching of civics often ignores that American democracy has always played, and continues to play, favorites. The ignoring of privileged systems in our democracy combined with the tendency to teach the struggle for human rights as history that is finished demonstrates the shaky ground upholding our democratic ideals. Miseducation in the early years, delivered through a desire to protect younger children from upsetting images, violent histories, or bad feelings, that omits the pervasive and persistent inequities inherent in American democracy reinforce that the social studies curriculum is written for those children who do not experience violence, injustice, or despair (Wills, 2001; Swalwell & Payne, 2019). By the time students have reached the secondary grades, whitewashed understandings of and reverence for American democracy are solidified for many students, and for others, particularly those students who are marginalized, the dissonance between the curriculum and their daily experience has made the social studies classroom a place of theoretical fairy tales.