This book passionately illustrates why the celebration of Black girlhood is essential. Based on the principles and practices of a Black girl-centered program, it examines how performances of everyday Black girlhood are mediated by popular culture, personal truths, and lived experiences, and how the discussion and critique of these factors can be a great asset in the celebration of Black girls. Drawing on scholarship from women's studies, African American studies, and education, the book skillfully joins poetry, autobiographical vignettes, and keen observations into a wholehearted, participatory celebration of Black girls in a context of hip-hop feminism and critical pedagogy. Through humor, honesty, and disciplined research it argues that hip-hop is not only music, but also an effective way of working with Black girls. Black Girlhood Celebration recognizes the everyday work many young women of color are doing, outside of mainstream categories, to create social change by painting an unconventional picture of how complex -- and necessary -- the goal of Black girl celebration can be.

This book passionately illustrates why the celebration of Black girlhood is essential. Based on the principles and practices of a Black girl-centered program, it examines how performances of everyday Black girlhood are mediated by popular culture, personal truths, and lived experiences, and how the discussion and critique of these factors can be a great asset in the celebration of Black girls. Drawing on scholarship from women's studies, African American studies, and education, the book skillfully joins poetry, autobiographical vignettes, and keen observations into a wholehearted, participatory celebration of Black girls in a context of hip-hop feminism and critical pedagogy. Through humor, honesty, and disciplined research it argues that hip-hop is not only music, but also an effective way of working with Black girls. Black Girlhood Celebration recognizes the everyday work many young women of color are doing, outside of mainstream categories, to create social change by painting an unconventional picture of how complex -- and necessary -- the goal of Black girl celebration can be.

Wish To Live: The Hip-hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader moves beyond the traditional understanding of the four elements of hip-hop culture - rapping, breakdancing, graffiti art, and deejaying - to articulate how hip-hop feminist scholarship can inform educational practices and spark, transform, encourage, and sustain local and global youth community activism efforts. This multi-genre and interdisciplinary reader engages performance, poetry, document analysis, playwriting, polemics, cultural critique, and autobiography to radically reimagine the political utility of hip-hop-informed social justice efforts that insist on an accountable analysis of identity and culture. Featuring scholarship from professors and graduate and undergraduate students actively involved in the work they profess, this book's commitment to making the practice of hip-hop feminist activism practical in our everyday lives is both compelling and unapologetic.

Disrupting Qualitative Inquiry is an edited volume that examines the possibilities and tensions encountered by scholars who adopt disruptive qualitative approaches to the study of educational contexts, issues, and phenomena. It presents a collection of innovative and intellectually stimulating chapters which illustrate the potential for disruptive qualitative research perspectives to advance social justice aims omnipresent in educational policy and practice dialogues. The book defines "disruptive" qualitative methodologies and methods in educational research as processes of inquiry which seek to: 1) Disrupt traditional notions of research roles and relationships 2) Disrupt dominant approaches to the collection and analysis of data 3) Disrupt traditional notions of representing and disseminating research findings 4) Disrupt rigid epistemological and methodological boundaries 5) Disrupt disciplinarily boundaries and assumptive frameworks of how to do educational research Scholars and graduate students interested in disrupting traditional approaches to the study of education will find this book of tremendous value. Given the inclusion of both research examples and reflective narratives, this book is an ideal text for adoption in introductory research design seminars as well as advanced courses devoted to theoretical and practical applications of qualitative and interpretive methodologies.

This volume examines how Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths, or SOLHOT, a radical youth intervention, provides a space for the creative performance and expression of Black girlhood and how this creativity informs other realizations about Black girlhood and womanhood. Founded in 2006 and co-organized by the author, SOLHOT is an intergenerational collective organizing effort that celebrates and recognizes Black girls as producers of culture and knowledge. Girls discuss diverse expressions of Black girlhood, critique the issues that are important to them, and create art that keeps their lived experiences at its center. Drawing directly from her experiences in SOLHOT, Ruth Nicole Brown argues that when Black girls reflect on their own lives, they articulate radically unique ideas about their lived experiences. She documents the creative potential of Black girls and women who are working together to advance original theories, practices, and performances that affirm complexity, interrogate power, and produce humanizing representation of Black girls' lives. Emotionally and intellectually powerful, this book expands on the work of Black feminists and feminists of color and breaks intriguing new ground in Black feminist thought and methodology.