Multimodal Narratives of Adolescents’ Music-Wellbeing Literacy Capabilities in a Music-Focused Secondary School

Abstract Meaningful and practical wellbeing strategies are needed to support young people living healthy lives. Wellbeing literacy is a positive psychology capability model for how people communicate about and for their wellbeing experiences, providing a framework for individuals to intentionally comprehend and create wellbeing languages to sustain and improve their own and others’ wellbeing. Contemporary views of literacy consider music a multimodal symbolic language and music is gaining recognition for its wellbeing benefits. This applied interdisciplinary study brings together theory and practices from positive psychology, education, and music to advance our understanding of the multimodality of wellbeing languages. A case study was conducted with students attending an Australian music-focussed secondary school to examine adolescent music-wellbeing literacy capabilities and experiences. The school primarily serves disengaged youth, and music, particularly songwriting, is used to re-engage students and support them towards positive educational and life outcomes. Three Year 11 students, Aurora, Ellie, and Rowan (aged 16), participated in individual share and tell narrative interviews incorporating creative arts-based methods. Multimodal narratives co-constructed with youth are presented, incorporating text, drawings, and original music. Findings reveal that adolescents used music for wellbeing, and music was also an act of wellbeing. Musical activities representing music-wellbeing literacy capabilities emerging from adolescent stories are identified and resulting music-wellbeing experiences are reported. Examples are provided of how adolescents can be supported by intentionally incorporating music-wellbeing literacy capabilities in and beyond the music classroom. Further research is needed to understand music-wellbeing literacy in diverse cultural contexts and its interaction with other literacies.