Hip-Hop and Spoken Word Therapy in School Counseling

"Ian Levy accepts hip-hop on its own terms. As a result, this book shows how hip-hop — its expressions and collective practices — can promote humane and whole counseling experiences for students. This book will expand the culturally responsive repertoire of school counselors and even classroom teachers."

-- Emery Petchauer, Associate Professor, Michigan State University, USA.

"Dr. Levy offers us a vibrant, rigorous, and deeply meaningful understanding of the healing and humanizing power and potentials of hip hop culture. Rather than pose hip hop as a simplistic intervention, by inviting students into healing spaces on their own terms, Dr. Levy reminds us of the knowledge of self and pedagogies of care hip hop embodies. This book presents elegantly researched and practical approaches to counseling for the hip hop generation. Clearly an invaluable resource for therapists, counselors, and educators and anyone interested in hip hop, youth, and culturally relevant approaches to education. A game changer."

-- Michael B. Dando, Assistant Professor of English, St. Cloud State University, USA.

"As counseling interventions continue to evolve, now more than ever before, school counselors are creating culturally responsive environments to meet students in their spaces and places. Dr. Ian Levy’s Hip Hop and Spoken Word Therapy provides the theoretical framework and the practical applications to give voice to the struggles and stresses that urban students face on the streets, in schools, and in their living situations. […] School counselors, educators, and therapists can use these meaningful and creative culturally expressive experiences, approaches, and resources to reach students who have not responded to traditional methods of counseling. Take the next step. Listen to your students’ voices and create a place to help them express themselves, learn, and grow!"

-- Carol Dahir, Professor, School Counseling Department, New York Institute of Technology, USA.

"Dr. Levy offers an innovative approach to school counseling that is anchored and guided by hip-hop culture. The articulation and use of hip-hop as a theoretical framing to inform the practices of school counseling has the potential to push the field to be increasingly thoughtful and intentional about offering students responsive school counseling practices. Further, Dr. Levy provides tangible research-based practices as well as meaningful anecdotes that can support practicing school counselors with engaging in hip-hop based school counseling. All school counselors should pick up this text!"

-- Edmund Adjapong, Assistant Professor of Education, Seton Hall University, USA.