This handbook addresses the educational uses of mindfulness in schools. It summarizes the state of the science and describes current and emerging applications and challenges throughout the field. It explores mindfulness concepts in scientific, theoretical, and practical terms and examines training opportunities both as an aspect of teachers’ professional development and a means to enhance students’ social-emotional and academic skills. Chapters discuss mindfulness and contemplative pedagogy programs that have produced positive student outcomes, including stress relief, self-care, and improved classroom and institutional engagement. Featured topics include: A comprehensive view of mindfulness in the modern era. Contemplative education and the roots of resilience. Mindfulness practice and its effect on students’ social-emotional learning. A cognitive neuroscience perspective on mindfulness in education that addresses students’ academic and social skills development. Mindfulness training for teachers and administrators. Two universal mindfulness education programs for elementary and middle school students. The Handbook of Mindfulness in Education is a must-have resource for researchers, graduate students, clinicians, and practitioners in psychology, psychiatry, education, and medicine, as well as counseling, social work, and rehabilitation therapy.

This book explores how mindfulness has been infused into education to produce favorable outcomes, such as stress reduction, heightened focus, resilience, calmness, alertness, mood regulation, self-awareness, professional commitment, and increased compassion and kindness to self and others. The chapters are situated in diverse contexts, including schools and colleges, warfare, violent extremism, global warming, child sex abuse, and species extinction. A feature of the book is the use of what is learned from ongoing research to design interventions to increase the incidence of mindful practices, to enhance learning and forms of conduct to transform social life and sustain harmonious lifestyles. Inclusion of mindfulness-based interventions in teacher education programs include breathing meditation and tools such as heuristics and mindful writing. Breathing meditation and its relationship to mindfulness is addressed, including abdominal breathing as a component of meditation, leading to mindful conduct and physiological changes, including heart rate and blood oxygenation levels. The extent to which breathing practice includes nasal and oral inhalation and exhalation is also considered in relation to increasing levels of nitric oxide in the airways, thereby enhancing social communication and wellness. This book was originally published as a special issue of Learning: Research and Practice.

With mindfulness initiatives currently highly topical in a range of academic, therapeutic and other domains, new applications of mindfulness have begun to appear in educational settings. This accumulation of twelve research-focused papers contributes to the nascent field of mindfulness in education by exploring practical implementations, as well as theoretical concerns within a range of educational contexts. The contributions in this volume reflect and capture the diversity of approaches to research-linked mindfulness programmes being implemented in contemporary education at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Ranging across a number of disciplines, the chapters contribute to work on mindfulness in psychology, education theory, and Buddhist studies. From the evidence provided here, it is shown that the implementation of mindfulness in educational settings is certainly worthwhile, while appropriately rigorous research methods are still being developed.

A structured curriculum of classroom-ready lessons, practices, and worksheets for actualizing a powerful new educational paradigm: student mindfulness. This workbook offers a step-by-step curriculum of classroom-ready mindfulness lessons for personal and professional development. It’s a trove of fun, easy activities specially designed to help educators engage K-12 students and cultivate mindful attributes like attention, compassion, and well-being. Rich with simple and effective tips, techniques, worksheets, and guided exercises developed through extensive on-the-ground experience with real students and teachers, The Mindful Education Workbook empowers readers with all the tools they need to integrate mindful education in the school day.

Although mindfulness can be located in a number of different traditions and disciplines, it was originally an esoteric and powerful practice based on developing a capacity attainable only by certain people. After previously publishing on the positive outcomes, in this book the author identifies a range of adverse effects of mindfulness meditation for some individuals that, from the point of view of mindfulness in schools and higher education, represents uncharted territory. The author demonstrates through research, personal experience and case studies how mindfulness activities can be safe for all students in education settings including the most vulnerable. This book assists teachers in school and higher education settings to make informed decisions about whether to include mindfulness in their teaching, depending on their own capacity, student cohorts and activities to make sure it is safe for more vulnerable students. This guidance is based on a combination of existing pedagogical and clinical knowledge about meeting the needs of vulnerable students, clients and patients and the specialized expertise of trained mindfulness clinicians and teachers. This book puts school and university teachers in the driver’s seat as regards mindfulness teaching in education settings. It argues that the only way forward for mindfulness in education is to adopt an individualized approach which builds on what effective teachers already do in their work with vulnerable students through extending their knowledge about mindfulness and its possible effects. In this way teachers’ existing skills are celebrated and extended, and mindfulness pedagogy develops organically with teachers, becoming a genuine and felt experience both for themselves and their students rather than an ‘add-on’ intervention.

This edited volume explores the role of arts and meditation within educational settings, and looks in particular at the preventive and developmental function of the arts in educational contexts through different theoretical perspectives. Encompassing research from an array of disciplines including theatre, psychology, neuroscience, music, psychiatry, and mindfulness, the book draws insights relevant to a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary fields. Chapters are divided into thematic sections, each outlining praxes and emphasising how educating within and through the arts can provide tools for critical thinking, creativity and a sense of agency, consequently fulfilling the need of well-being and contributing towards human flourishing. Ultimately, the book focuses on the role the arts have played in our understanding of physical and mental health, and demonstrates the new-found significance of the discipline in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. With its interdisciplinary and timely nature, this book will be essential reading for scholars, academics, and post-graduate researchers in the field of arts education, creative therapies, neuroscience, psychology, and mindfulness.

Mindfulness and Business Education: Developing self-aware future leaders is a practical guide for educators and academics with teaching responsibilities in business schools or colleges. Business schools have a responsibility to equip future leaders with the right knowledge and the right skills to make the right decisions, particularly in times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. This responsibility can only be met if business schools change the way they teach and develop self-aware future leaders who are grounded in the foundations of mindfulness. The book is divided into three parts: Why, What, and How. Part One: Why introduces the foundations of mindfulness, draws on the history of business school development, and discusses leadership approaches presently taught in business schools. Part Two: What discusses ways of measuring mindfulness, the need for training business educators as mindfulness facilitators, and the contextualisation of mindfulness in contemporary business topics such as wellbeing, sustainability, diversity, and artificial intelligence. Part Three: How provides case studies and scripted resources for immediate use and implementation in extracurricular or co-curricular activities to design mindfulness-based modules and courses, to introduce mindfulness coaching as part of pastoral care and staff development, and to develop mindfulness-driven business education strategies. This is an ideal book for those in business education looking to use mindfulness to develop future managers and leaders.

The push for inclusivity has revolutionized educational practices, policies, and frameworks. Schools are no longer merely institutions that impart knowledge; they are shaping societal values, promoting social justice, and preparing students to progress. This evolution is driven by the understanding that inclusive education benefits all students, not just those with disabilities or special needs. It promotes empathy, reduces prejudice, and equips students with the skills to contribute to a complex, interconnected world. Revolutionizing Inclusive Education: Mindfulness, Neurodiversity, and Executive Functioning Skills explores the life-changing potential of inclusive education. With a strong emphasis on the word “revolutionizing,” the book challenges traditional practices and conventional thinking in the field of inclusive education. By integrating mindfulness practices, understanding neurodiversity, and developing executive functioning skills, the book offers a fresh and innovative approach to inclusive classrooms. Covering topics such as assistive technology, neurodivergent learners, and student well-being, this book is an essential resource for academicians, researchers, school administrators, educators, preservice teachers, and more.

The Mindful Teacher’s Toolkit gives educators clear directions to develop their own mindful or awareness-based practice and ideas for how to embody and integrate these practices in their teaching. The combination of activities, guidance and real-life examples provide mindful teachers with a toolkit of everything they need to be able to develop their own mindful classroom.

Applied Positive School Psychology is an essential guide to help teachers regain their own and assist the school community in rebuilding their health post-pandemic. While research in positive psychology is thriving, teachers and educational practitioners find it challenging to apply it in their daily practice. This practical book fills the gap between theory and practice and provides practitioners with an evidence-based toolkit on using the positive psychology in their school communities. With contributions from experts in their field, this important resource explores student wellbeing, teacher wellbeing, inclusion, developing positive relationships, creativity, and therapeutic art. Written with the practitioner in mind, Applied Positive School Psychology is a must read for the teaching community and those interested in positive education. It will also be of interest to academics specialising in wellbeing or education, educational psychologists, and education policy makers.