Urban Is Floating Face Down in the Mainstream: Using Hip-Hop-Based Education Research to Resurrect “the Urban” in Urban Education

Throughout this article, I argue that within the mainstream field of urban education, “the urban” is floating face down, lifeless, and devoid of significant meaning. “City” and “urban” function as taken-for-granted variables that stand in the rightful place of rich explanations, based in theory and evidence, of the city and its intersection with cultural transformations, pedagogies, movements, and knowledge(s) that comprise educational processes. To resurrect the urban concept, I present an overview of urban perspectives in two categories: old school (passive spatial theories) and new school (instrumental spatial theories). I highlight four recent urban education publications that reflect an emerging scholarly cypher on what I refer to as the urban education question. I then outline four spatial dimensions of hip hop and use these as a springboard for arguing that hip-hop pedagogues are uniquely positioned to be resurrectors of the urban concept. I conclude by exploring what such a theoretical pivot entails.