Love receives UGA's Michael F. Adams Early Career Scholar Award

Bettina Love, an assistant professor in educational theory and practice, has received the University of Georgia 2014 Michael F. Adams Early Career Scholar Award.

Love is an outstanding scholar whose work focuses on the ways in which urban youth negotiate hip hop music and culture to form social, cultural and political identities. A continuing thread of her scholarship explores new ways of thinking about urban education and culturally relevant pedagogical approaches for urban learners.

Love is a founding board member of Atlanta Word Works, an empowerment program that engages youth through creative writing and spoken word. She also served on the founding board of the Kindezi School, a charter school that champions alternative teaching methods.

Love has authored a book, seven peer-reviewed journal articles and seven book chapters. Her first book, Hip Hop's Li'l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Identities and Politics in the New South, was awarded the 2013 Critic's Choice Award by the American Educational Studies Association. The book provides important perspectives on how to better support young black women both in and out of school.

Named in honor of the UGA's 21st President, these awards recognize outstanding accomplishment and evidence of potential future success in scholarship, creative work or research by early career faculty members.