When the ‘mindfulness wars’ enter the classroom: making sense of the critique of school-based mindfulness

Abstract

ABSTRACT The introduction of mindfulness into schools and its potential effects on health and wellbeing promotion have received substantial attention among scholars. However, the implications and consequences thematised by critics of school-based mindfulness have yet to receive the same analytical scrutiny. One side has praised mindfulness as a useful instrument to improve students’ wellbeing, mental health, and learning outcomes; by contrast, the opposing side has suggested that such practices are yet another quick fix for neoliberal developments in education. Guided by the prospect of leaving behind the binary understanding of mindfulness practices as either highly beneficial or severely harmful, this paper examines and contextualises the critical discussion of school-based mindfulness through a two-step conceptual analysis. First, I unpack how school-based mindfulness has emerged as a specific topic of discussion within the general field of critical mindfulness research. I argue that the critical discourse within the subfield of school-based mindfulness cannot be viewed in isolation from the wider range of critical agendas concerning general applications of mindfulness. Second, I unpack how the majority of critical scholars have adopted a particular critical approach to mindfulness, accentuating its binding entanglement with neoliberalism. In conclusion, I offer prospects for future critical treatments of school-based mindfulness.