At a packed punk show in Washington, D.C., the music suddenly stops.
The band's frontwoman steps forward, not to introduce the next song, but to speak directly to the crowd - about immigration enforcement, global solidarity and how people in the room can keep one another safe after the set ends. The audience listens closely. Some nod. Others pull out their phones to look up organizations mentioned from the stage.
For Eric Hunting, a doctoral candidate in the Penn State College of Education, this moment represents something larger than a pause between songs.
"This is a kind of education," Hunting said. "Just not the kind most people are taught to recognize."
While punk has long been associated with resistance and anti-establishment politics, Hunting's focus on Latinx punk highlights how culture and identity shape education. He said he was drawn to Latinx punk because it brings together questions of learning, culture, music and identity.
"It provides a powerful site for exploring how people create meaning, build community and resist dominant narratives," he said.
At its core, Hunting's work aims to explore how individuals who identify as Latinx and punk describe their experiences in these communities and what they learn through them - from political awareness to personal identity and community engagement. His project draws on interviews with participants who identify as both Latinx and punk, focusing on their lived experiences and how they describe learning, meaning-making and community formation through their involvement in punk scenes.
A personal path to punk pedagogy
Hunting did not arrive at Penn State intending to study punk music. His early academic interests centered on broader questions of labor and economic change.
Before graduate school, he worked in residence life at Cornell University, where he led a music-focused residence hall and explored how music could function as a tool for learning and community building.
He chose Penn State for its emphasis on research and support for graduate students, particularly in the study of learning beyond traditional classroom settings.
Hunting, who is advised by John Holst, associate professor of lifelong learning and adult education, has continued to develop that line of inquiry through his doctoral work. His dissertation research examines Latinx punk as an informal educational space - one where learning happens through sound, participation and collective reflection rather than structured lectures and scheduled exams.
Punk as an informal classroom
Hunting said his work hinges on the idea that Latinx punk communities create their own pedagogical environments. Unlike traditional classrooms, these spaces reject rigid hierarchies between teacher and student. Instead, knowledge is produced collaboratively through music, performance and dialogue.
In punk spaces, performers may offer political context, cultural critique or personal narratives, but they do not position themselves as unquestionable authorities, Hunting said. Audiences are not passive recipients. They are expected to reflect, ask questions and decide how, or whether, to act on what they hear.
The educational dimensions of Latinx punk become especially visible in live performances.
Hunting points to shows by bands such as Downtown Boys, where songs are interwoven with brief monologues addressing current political issues and community organizing efforts.
"These moments turn concerts into collective learning experiences," Hunting said. "Everyone in the room is part of the same conversation, even if they take different things away from it. … [But] the learning doesn't stop when the show ends. In many ways, that's when it begins."
Hunting's research also examines zines, do-it-yourself culture and grassroots media as vehicles for education. Zines - small, self-published booklets often exchanged at shows - offer low-cost, accessible ways to circulate ideas outside mainstream media and algorithm-driven platforms.
"Zines bypass a lot of the barriers we see in formal publishing and online spaces," Hunting said. "They allow people to share knowledge directly, on their own terms."
By examining Latinx punk as an informal educational space, Hunting said he aims to challenge narrow definitions of learning that privilege institutional settings over community-based ones.
"Punk shows us that education doesn't require permission," Hunting said. "It can happen anywhere people are willing to think critically, take care of one another and imagine something different."
