About Dr. Brian Mooney

Dr. Brian Mooney is a teacher-educator, poet, scholar, and author from New Jersey. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His research explores the intersections of language, literacy, and popular culture.

In June 2015, Dr. Mooney’s teaching caught the attention of Pulitzer Prize-winning Hip Hop artist Kendrick Lamar and resulted in a school visit by the rapper. Dr. Mooney’s first book, Breakbeat Pedagogy: Hip Hop and Spoken Word Beyond the Classroom Walls, was published in September 2016 by Peter Lang Academic Publishing. His work has been featured by The New York Times, BBC, Rolling Stone, NBC, MTV, and NPR.

Dr. Mooney’s dissertation is a multimodal Hip Hop and spoken word album titled, To Speak a True Word: Remixing Hip Hop Pedagogies, Poetics, and Literacies. In 2024 he received an Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association.

Expertise

  • Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Pedagogy

  • Antiracist Teaching

  • Critical Media Literacies

  • Digital Literacies

  • Youth Activism

  • Critical Hip Hop Literacies

  • Hip Hop and Spoken Word Pedagogy

  • Critical Poetic Inquiry

  • Decolonizing Qualitative Research

  • Narrative Inquiry

Education

Doctor of Philosophy - Teachers College, Columbia University - English Education

Master of Arts - Teachers College, Columbia University - Teaching of English

Bachelor of Science - New York University - Teaching English 7-12