Type of Document Dissertation Author Love, Bettina L Author's Email Address blove2@gsu.edu URN etd-08112008-104622 Title DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER: AN ETHNOGRAPHY ABOUT ACHIEVEMENT, RAP MUSIC, SEXUALITY & RACE Degree Ph.D. Department Educational Policy Studies Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Jennifer Esposito, Ph.D. Committee Chair Carlos R. McCray, Ed.D. Committee Member Jonathan Gayles, Ph.D. Committee Member Richard Lakes, Ph.D. Committee Member Keywords
- youth
- race
- ethnography
- rap music
- sexuality
Date of Defense 2008-07-01 Availability unrestricted Abstract The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore how youth consumption of rap music informed their ideas of gender, race, sexuality, and education at a local community center in Atlanta, Georgia. The participants in the study were comprised of three male and six female Black students from working class families, ranging in age from 13–17 years old. The data collection process included 60 formal interviews, 55 informal interviews, 27 focus group interviews, 103 participant observations, and document analyses of media materials. Atlas.ti: The Knowledge Workbench (2003) assisted with the organizing, coding, categorizing, and interpreting of the vast amount of data. Findings from the study revealed four major themes: (a) youth’s engagement with rap music fostered essentialized notions of Blackness, (b) teens believed that Blacks were intellectually inferior, (c) youth perceived their classroom teachers as racist and (d) youth responded to their teacher’s perceived racism by disassociating themselves from youth they believed to be academically inferior. The findings of this study addressed the need for candid dialogues about race in the classroom and educational policy that incorporates critical media literacy.Files
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