Remixing the School Counselor’s Tool Kit

Abstract

This article explores a model for school counselors to capitalize on the therapeutic, empowerment-oriented nature of hip-hop practices to engage in youth participatory action research (YPAR). Drawing from research that supports the use of hip-hop therapy and YPAR in schools, we propose a culturally sensitive group counseling process wherein students use hip-hop lyric writing, recording, and performing to critically analyze, research, and report on issues of personal importance to them.

Youth Participatory Action Research as School Counseling Praxis: A Scoping Review

“…Six of the articles explored in this study posited that YPAR is an effective medium for aiding students' social/emotional development. Specifically, school counselors can apply YPAR to address race-related stressors inside and outside of school stressors (Edirmanasinghe et al, 2022;Williams et al, 2020) and poverty-related stressors (Smith et al, 2018); to promote emotional processing, well-being, and connectedness (Levy et al, 2018;Smith et al, 2010Smith et al, , 2012; and to decrease anxiety, stress, and/or depression symptoms (Levy & Travis, 2020). According to studies considering youth's college and career development (n = 4), school counselors can use YPAR to grow college-ready research skills and critical consciousness (Scott et al, 2015), career self-efficacy (Edirmanasinghe & Blaginin, 2019), and leadership skills (Ozer & Wright, 2012), and to explore issues of college access (Cook et al, 2019).…”

Hip-Hop and Spoken Word Therapy in Urban School Counseling

“…In HHSWT, school counselors allow the acts of writing, recording, and performing emotionally themed hip-hop songs to guide the counseling process. Levy, Cook, and Emdin (2018) discussed the cultural importance of albums or mixtapes in hiphop culture, highlighting that they have traditionally offered marginalized individuals and communities a platform to share complex, untold stories. Mixtape creation is humanistic in nature, given that all songs on the project are chosen solely by the creators and are based on what they deem most important.…”

“…He also set aside time and space for cogenerative dialogues (Emdin, 2016), in which the students and facilitator worked together to troubleshoot any issues in the class. Students were supported in using their reality and life context in the classroom (Emdin, 2016) to accomplish the course goal of creating a mixtape covering emotional themes deemed relevant to their lives (Levy, Cook, & Emdin, 2018). Further, the course curriculum required that the school counselor/facilitator utilize the HHSWT practices of lyric writing as cognitive journaling, collaboration as role play, and the hip-hop cypher to support students in discussing, writing, and recording emotionally laden songs.…”

Exploring Youth Participatory Action Research in Urban Schools: Advancing Social Justice and Equity-Based Counseling Practices

“…Another creative outlet for research dissemination uses photovoice, where participants use photography to document and express their perspectives of the research project (Royce et al, 2006;Wang & Burris, 1997). Other forms of dissemination include planning a community event, communicating findings and implications online, displaying participant artwork depicting relevant finding, and performing music lyrics disseminated through online medias (Berg et al, 2009;Jennings et al, 2006;Levy et al, 2019;Ozer, 2017;Wilson et al, 2008).…”

“…With these similarities in mind, Levy et al (2019) suggested that pairing HHT with YPAR principles may help counselors to facilitate dialogue about systemic issues that students face through emotional lyric production and group collaboration. The process of lyrical creation, production, and dissemination provides counselors and students the opportunity to engage in discussion about and address salient community issues and thus lends itself well to the YPAR paradigm (Levy et al, 2019). Levy et al concluded that the combining of practices from the fields of HHT, YPAR, and school counseling offer students the opportunity to engage in relevant action research through group collaboration.…”