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Dr Radel James Gacumo

Radel James

Independent researcher, Norway

Email: gacumoradeljames@gmail.com

Profile

Radel James Gacumo is a Filipino researcher in childhood studies and education based in Norway. His research explores children's literature, literacy, and multimodal meaning-making, with particular attention to children's rights, participation, inclusion, and diverse childhoods. Bringing together childhood studies, sensory studies, queer theory, and multimodal literacy, his work examines how children engage with stories through embodied, relational, and multisensory experiences. He developed the Critical Sensory Multimodal Literacies (CSML) framework to better understand how sensory and multimodal encounters shape children's engagement with texts. His current interests include digital childhoods, critical AI literacy, and children's engagements with emerging technologies across global contexts.

Research

Publications

Gacumo, R. J. (2026). Gender diversity in Nordic children’s literature: A critical sensory multimodal analysis. Barn – forskning om barn og barndom i Norden, 44(2), 28–47. https://doi.org/10.23865/barn.v44.7692

Gacumo, R. J., & Kucirkova, N. I. (2026). Textures of reading: Narrative emotion and olfactory engagement in multisensory stories. Multimodality & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/26349795261447743

Gacumo, R. J., Coats, K., & Kucirkova, N. I. (2026). Reading without words: Sensory inclusion and meaning-making in children’s multimodal texts. Children’s Literature in Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-026-09677-8

Gacumo, R. J. (2026). Reading with all our senses: EDI picturebooks, inclusion and critical sensory multimodal literacy in early childhood. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2026.2646979

Gacumo, R. J. (2026). Reading gender in early childhood: Schemas, scripts, and the multimodal shaping of children’s lived performances. Education Sciences, 16(1), 25. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16010025

Gacumo, R. J., Campbell, J. A., Løkken, I. M., & Kucirkova, N. I. (2025). The role of gender in multisensory reading: Children’s engagement with olfaction-enhanced digital books. International Journal of Educational Research, 133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2025.102658

Gacumo, R. J., Kucirkova, N. I., & Coats, K. (2025). Sensory literacies to foster reading for pleasure. In Reading for Pleasure (1st ed., Vol. 1, pp. 47–62). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003519003-6

Gacumo, R. J., Campbell, J. A., Moser, T., & Kucirkova, N. (2024). Multisensory and gender-diverse books in ECEC and schools: A scoping review. Nordic Journal of Systematic Reviews in Education, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.23865/njsre.v2.6205

Expertise

Childhood studies, Children's rights and participation, Early childhood education, Children's literature, Literacy and multimodal literacy, Critical sensory multimodal literacy (CSML), Sensory studies and multisensory reading, Inclusion, diversity, and equity, Digital childhoods, AI in education, Critical AI literacy, Media and technology in childhood
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