Turning Inward: Students’ Experiences with Mindful Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy in Higher Education
In the past 15-20 years, contemplative practices, designed to cultivate present-moment awareness, have become more common in K-12 educational settings with some growth in higher education contexts seeking to reorient around teaching the “whole student”. In response to calls that have also emerged in higher education to advance social justice aims, this multimethod study examines the role of mindfulness in an undergraduate sociology of body course taught from an anti-oppression education lens. This study fills the gap in the existing literature by exploring a deeper understanding of experiences with mindfulness in higher education from the lens and language of students. Through a survey of 126 student participants and interviews and analysis of critical multimodal art projects with 14 student participants, this study sought to explore three research questions: 1) how students describe their engagement with mindfulness in a sociology of body course 2) how students describe their understanding of mindfulness and 3) how students conceptualize and describe their experiences with contemplative practices as they relate to their critical learning. Findings from the surveys reveal that students engaged in a wide variety of mindfulness practices on a regular basis and in meaningful ways such as taking the time to breathe deeply to ground themselves and being present in classroom conversations. Students reported overall positive experiences related to aspects of their critical learning as well as augmenting their personal growth. Findings from the paired interviews and critical multimodal art compositions exploring suggest that students’ understanding of mindfulness centered on an attention to the present, grounded in their personal sensory experiences, assisting them in connecting their intellectual, emotional and bodily responses to the course material. Findings from the paired interviews and critical multimodal art compositions also suggest that incorporating mindfulness into anti-oppression education can serve as an entry point to promote purposeful engagement in the learning environment, foster reflexive dispositions, and compassion for self and others. This study highlights how mindfulness, when grounded in cultural humility, offers a counter-narrative to the neoliberal influences prevalent in higher education by cultivating more embodied, student-centered learning. This research contributes to the growing scholarship on mindful anti-oppression pedagogy and its potential to promote both individual and collective transformation in higher education spaces.
contemplative pedagogy, critical multimodal methodology, cultural humility, mindful anti-oppression, social justice in education, sociology, Higher Education
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