MODAL Research

MODAL Research Group began in 2008 as Research for Youth, Music and Education (RYME). Our research still includes a strong focus on youth and music, particularly as music relates to young people’s everyday lives. Many young people who participated in our past research told us about their engagement with music in ways that are increasingly multimodal (involving different modes of expression that include elements from visual arts, language arts, dance, and drama) as well as digital media technologies. We have therefore expanded our research to focus on a comprehensive and systematic study of artistic learning and the multiple pathways through which youth are engaged in and through the arts, particularly in relation to youth-led initiatives and digital media. MODAL researchers share a common vision of multimodal learning, multimedia literacies, and integrated arts education as key ingredients in educating young people in today’s digital and globalized world. Our name MODAL emphasizes the interdisciplinary approaches and interconnectivity of perspectives that we bring to our research, which forms a multimodal ensemble “suggestive of discrete parts brought together as a synthesized whole, where modes, like melodies played on different instruments, are interrelated in complex ways” (MODE, 2012).