Mindfulness in and as education: A map of a developing academic discourse from 2002 to 2017

Abstract

Since the turn of the millennium there has been a clear rise in the implementation and research of mindfulness across primary, secondary and postsecondary education. These implementations, however, hardly constitute a uniform phenomenon. They reflect a variety of framings, modalities and educational aims, as documented in hundreds of peer‐reviewed papers. To date no overarching review has provided an empirically based mapping of this multifaceted and rapidly developing discourse. This paper offers a first‐of‐its‐kind map of mindfulness in education stemming from the 447 peer‐reviewed papers published between 2002 and 2017 that constitute this academic discourse, and based on grounded theory methodology. The research reveals an exponential rise in the amount of publications over years, with a complex discourse that evolves from seven different framings of the practice, applied to nine different educational domains and based on various types of implementation. It maps this complex discourse and describes its two main patterns to date as they emerged from the research: (1) Mindfulness in education, which comprises mostly of outsourced, secularised interventions aimed at improved mental–physical health, social–emotional learning and cognitive functions, (2) Mindfulness as education, which is a less common yet more transformative strand and manifests in contemplative pedagogy in higher education and in some rare whole‐school implementations. Overall, in the studied period mindfulness has been moving from near‐anonymity towards the mainstream; however, this discourse reflects a nascent phase given that it is only beginning to critique itself. Furthermore, its two patterns reflect a split discourse that is challenged by the practice's psychological–secular framing and its Buddhist framing.

Rethinking teacher education in a VUCA world: student teachers’ social-emotional competencies during the Covid-19 crisis

“…If we want to optimise teachers' ability to model and promote social-emotional competencies in their own classrooms, we need to help them build their own. This implies incorporating practices, such as mindfulness that have been shown to cultivate these skills (Ergas and Hadar 2019;Hulburt, Colaianne, and Roeser 2020;Jennings et al 2017;MGIEP 2020).…”

“…One possible direction has been emerging from professional development programs for teachers that focus on mindfulness practice in the teaching of social-emotional competencies, given that they are often directly framed within the context of coping and resilience (Ergas and Hadar 2019;Jennings et al 2017;Hulburt, Colaianne, and Roeser 2020). These, however, have mostly been applied and studied with in-service teachers and tend to span a short number of weeks (Birchinall, Spendlove, and Buck 2019).…”

“…This has led to the argument that higher education institutions ought to develop students' social-emotional competencies in order to enhance their ability to cope with stress (Bamber et al 2018;Dvořáková, Greenberg, and Roeser 2019). Some studies indeed demonstrated the effectiveness of interventions focused around mindfulness and social-emotional competencies as means for reducing teacher stress and enhancing their inner coping resources (Ergas and Hadar 2019;Birchinall, Spendlove, and Buck 2019;Jennings et al 2017). Such research has led academic authorities in education faculties to implement action plans, to ensure that institutional agendas promote the welfare of students directly (Sancho-Gil, Sánchez-Valero, and Domingo-Coscollola 2017).…”

Mindfulness “in” Education as a Form of Iatrogenesis

“…A similar categorization has been employed by Ergas (2019b), who adds mindfulness 'of' to 'in' and 'as' education. This third category, also discussed by Sellman & Buttarazzi (2020), but subsumed by mindfulness 'as' education, engages a more critical form of mindfulness to include understanding the nature of education and the education system, including its more covert functions such as conditioning and reproduction of wealth. In Ergas and Linor (2019) and Ergas (2019a), it's clear that mindfulness 'as' education is rare, and mindfulness 'of' education is rarer still, some university courses with social justice outlooks excepted (e.g. Rendon, 2009;Berila, 2016).…”

A Qualitative Study of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention in Educational Contexts in Chile: An Approach Based on Adolescents’ Voices

“…Given the formative role of the educational system in adolescents' development, it became a necessity for schools to enhance the development of socio-emotional and behavioural skills as an essential part of the 21st century curriculum, which was achieved through programs commonly known as Social Emotional Learning (SEL) [5]. In this regard, one of the most promising strategies, systematically researched and tested in several countries, are mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) [6]. Indeed, MBIs may lay the groundwork for self and social resilience by targeting specific psychological needs in connection with socio-emotional development during adolescence [7].…”