UC San Diego

Much of the current literature on the educator uses of mindfulness tends to focus on its use to decrease teacher stress and burnout, and increase teacher occupational health and well-being. However, there are some scholars (Ergas, 2019; Forbes, 2016; Orr, 2002) who have called for a more radical form for the use of mindfulness in schools to disrupt systems of oppression that disadvantage and systematically harm marginalized peoples. Currently, there are very few empirical studies that embed mindfulness practices within critiques of social contexts. This dissertation addressed this gap, using a decolonizing framework influenced by empowerment and feminist sentient-social embodiment to address how educators embodied mindfulness within their critical pedagogy, what their goals of this embodiment were, the effects of their efforts on their students and curriculum, and how their social context shaped their aspirations and actions. Thirteen educators participated as co-researchers on this critical participatory action research (CPAR) study, collectively working through a seven week “Mindfulness for Critical Educators” continuing education course. Co-researchers produced qualitative data in the form of course assignments and individual semi-structured interviews which they helped design, as well as assisted in data analysis. This study shifted the discourse on mindfulness in schools from the psychological and therapeutic to the socially engaged (Low, 2019), where mindfulness was practiced not only to alleviate individual stress and promote resilience within institutions that reproduce harm, but also to promote pedagogical and onto-epistemological changes to help disrupt the root causes of collective suffering.