Mindfulness and Education

Abstract

This article focuses on the literature on mindfulness and mindfulness meditation with children and young people in schools and in higher education. It touches on mindfulness for adult educators including teachers and on the overlapping field of contemplative education in higher education. This is a selective guide to the theoretical, research, and practice-based literature in a rapidly evolving field and aimed at those unfamiliar with the territory. Work with young people cannot be understood in isolation, so the article begins by going back to first principles, looking at issues of definitions and origins of mindfulness from within ancient wisdom traditions, most particularly, but not exclusively, its Buddhist origins. It then contextualizes work with young people within the rapid rise of secular mindfulness for adult populations since the late 1970s, explores modern scientifically based definitions, and the domination of the therapeutically based model of mindfulness as an “intervention,” touching on some concerns and critiques, and outlining how mindfulness is currently being measured in adults and young people. It moves on to an account of overviews of mindfulness in education, citing the best of the plethora of guidance on how mindfulness might be implemented in schools, universities, and classrooms. It outlines the key literature on the rapidly expanding world of contemplative education, which is asking rather different questions to those raised by the model of mindfulness as an “intervention,” being more firmly based in philosophical and educational approaches. The world of classroom curricula is a burgeoning and lively one, and the article cites some of the best evidenced and most positively reviewed resources. There is a growing and promising evidence base to guide the field, and the last part of the article outlines the main reviews, which between them suggest there is a small to moderate impact of mindfulness when well taught and implemented. The article concludes by looking in more detail at the core literature in main areas in which mindfulness appears to be showing impact, including: psycho-social well-being and mental health; social and emotional skills including compassion and kindness; cognition, executive function, learning, and academic attainment; and physical health. See also the Oxford Bibliographies article in Education, “Mindfulness, Learning, and Education,” which has overlaps with this article, but explores in more detail definitions, overviews and websites and the implications for learning, while this article has a stronger focus on psychological mechanisms, measurement, and the empirical evidence base. They are probably best consulted together for a full understanding.