Mindfulness/Meditation, Racial Justice and Education Reform

What are the potential implications of a growing “mindfulness movement” on education reform and racial justice efforts in the United States? One Nation Indivisible is convening mindfulness/meditation practitioners, educators, civil rights advocates and scholars to help us learn about and discuss:

Efforts to bring mindfulness into various educational settings (including K-12 public schools, after-school programs and professional development for teachers);
What the research says about the benefits of mindfulness in relation to challenges commonly faced by students of color and/or low-income students;
Whether mindfulness practice might be a helpful tool in reducing unconscious racial bias, privilege, internalized racism and/or in increasing individuals’ capacity to engage in difficult discussions about interpersonal, institutional and structural racial inequality; and
How practitioners have attempted to make mindfulness practice accessible to, and welcoming for, people of all racial, ethnic linguistic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Related Resources

Zen for High Schoolers: Notice the Anxiety. Notice the Fear by Aidan Gardiner (New York Times, City Room Blog 2012)
A Bold Approach to Reducing Student Stress by Mariko Nobori (Edutopia, 2012)
Mindfulness as Method: Teaching for Connection in a Dehumanizing Context by Lisa (Leigh) Patel, Katharine Atkins-Pattenson, Daniel Healy, Jessica Gold Haralson, Luis Rosario & Jianan Shi (PRRAC, 2013)
Note to Educators: Hope is Required When Growing Roses in Concrete by Jeff Duncan-Andrade (Harvard Educational Review, 2009)
Things I Have Seen and Heard: How Educators, Youth Workers and Elected Leaders Can Help Reduce the Damage of Childhood Exposure to Violence in Communities by Candice Player and Susan Eaton (The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, 2009)
Millions of Children Find the Schoolhouse Door Locked by Daniel Losen and Jonathan Gillespie (Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, 2012)
Why Is American Buddhism So White? (Buddhadharma, 2011)
Meditation’s Effect on the Neurological Basis of Racial Bias talk given by john powell (Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, 2010)
Directing the Mind Towards Practices in Diversity by Larry Yang (2002)
Being Mindful and White In a Multicultural World: Lessons Learned from Participation in an Interconnected Group by Elisa Audo

Please contact us if you are interested in our mindfulness/meditation, racial justice and education reform work.