AIRS Research Themes (re-structured in summer 2008):
Development Sub Themes
Determining through cross-cultural research, the universal stages of development of singing: what pitch and timing relations, themes or emotions predominate at particular ages? What human interactions, such as caregiver-infant interchanges, are critical for or typical of song development?
Defining the distinguishing features between singing and speech acquisition so as to advance and developmental music psychology and psycholinguistics.
Having done some prior work on one child's spontaneous singing skills (in the early years), using conversation analysis, I would like to extend and develop this methodology with other interested parties/collaborators. My research background is in the area of child development and conversation analysis and in my view there is considerable research potential in using this methodology in adjacent areas of singing/development of singing research. There are also a number of interesting parallels between the acquisition of conversational and singing skills and warrant further investigation using this methodology.
Surveying and improving instructional methods for teaching songs to children and others based on knowledge gained from research on Development and aided by a new digital multimedia data base. Both formal and informal methods are of interest, as are models from all cultures, and pedagogical issues faced by various cultures.
Examining the role of teaching songs of foreign cultures to children to promote cultural understanding.
Establishing and examining inter-generational singing where elder members of a society teach children songs of their culture, and exploring how singing may increase individual and community well-being in general.
Singing is both a highly personal aesthetic behavior as well as a potentially rewarding communal activity. Exploring how the encouragement of singing can benefit mental and physical health (e.g., lowered stress, improved cardiovascular fitness) has implications for quality of life, and reduced spending of individuals and governments on health care.
In the last 25 years, a field of psychology that focuses on the subjective experience of happiness has developed. It is referred to positive psychology, and Diener is often credited with its origination. This field of psychology recognizes that one of the universal human goals is to attain happiness or subjective well-being. Subjective well-being is to be distinctive from other kinds of well-being as may be assigned by an external observer or bank teller. Objective well-being is based on what others assume will bring happiness to a second party. Subjective well-being seems to be more elusive , and yet what is known about it, through surveys and subjective reports, indicates that it has a considerable inpact on behavior. From the point of view of AIRS therefore it is important that singing in theory could influence subjective well-being for the better, and since singing is a relatively inexpensive intervention, it could be more readily employed to improve subjective well-being. (To be continued)