ABSTRACT
A study to determine the effects of a pedagogical approach of using rap music on the learning of musical forms, and to determine whether differential effects exist among students of different levels of self-esteem. Sixty-six African American students at Brittany-Woods Middle School in the urban St Louis County Public School District who were enrolled in general music classes were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The students, in grades six through eight, were assessed according to the second edition of the Culture-free Self-esteem Inventories (Battle 1992) and then were divided into high, middle and low self-esteem groups. The author composed songs, used representative examples, created tests, gave explicit directions to both the experimental and control groups to ensure the reliability and validity of his conclusions.
