Education and the Swedish Gangster Rap Generation

Acknowledging the increasing cultural significance of gangster rap on youth culture internationally since the 2010s, this book explores how gangster rap is understood, interpreted, and negotiated in media reports, by young people and educators in different educational environments.

The book situates hip-hop culture as both a global and local phenomenon, positioned at the intersection of education, youth culture, and society. Gathered from media analysis, interviews, and educational discourse, the book explores how youth engage in hip-hop through educational initiatives and juvenile detention centres which often adopt a socially pedagogical approach, reflecting a time when hip-hop was more strongly associated with political, humanitarian, and emancipatory messages; increasingly nihilistic in tone and content, gangster rap now raises complex educational questions about its influence on youth culture. Using gangster rap in the Swedish context as the dominant case study explored, the book situates these empirical findings within a broader international research context that examines recent developments regarding hip-hop in European youth culture.

Ultimately providing a timely examination of the intersection of youth culture, social pedagogy, and identity formation, this book will be of value to scholars, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of sociology of education, urban education, and music and education more broadly. Those interested in hip-hop culture and society will also find the volume of use.