Contemplative Practices and Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies for Higher Education

<p>This volume explores mindfulness and other contemplative approaches as strategic tools for cultivating anti-oppressive pedagogies in higher education.</p><p>Research confirms that simply providing students with evidence and narratives of economic, social, and environmental injustices proves insufficient in developing awareness and eliciting responses of empathy, solidarity, and a desire to act for change. From the environmental humanities to the environmental sciences, legal studies, psychology, and counseling, educators from a range of geographical and disciplinary standpoints describe their research-based mindfulness pedagogies. Chapters explore how to interrupt and interrogate oppression through contemplative teaching tools, assignments, and strategies that create greater awareness and facilitate deeper engagement with learning contents, contexts, and communities. </p><p>Providing a framework that facilitates awareness of the links between historic and current oppression, self-identity, and trauma, and creating a transformative learning experience through mindfulness, this book is a must-read for faculty and educators interested in intersections of mindfulness, contemplative pedagogies, and anti-oppression.</p> <p><strong>Part I: Contemplative Theoretical Frameworks </strong>1. Introduction to Contemplative Practices and Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies for Higher Education 2. Pursuing Antiracist and Anticolonial Approaches to Contemplative Practices <strong>Part II: Contemplative Pedagogies for Environmental Justice</strong> 3. Eco-Grief and Climate Anxiety in the Classroom 4. Contemplative Pedagogies, Environmental Literature, and the Art of "Interbeing" 5. Literary Reading, Mindfulness, and Climate Justice: An Experiment in Contemplative Ecocritical Pedagogy 6. Mindfulness, Writing, and Sustainable Happiness in the Anthropocene <strong>Part III: Contemplative Pedagogies Across the Disciplines </strong>7. Inner Tracking: A Reflective Practice for Transformative Learning 8. A Mindful Approach to Teaching Art and Yoga as a Means of Liberation 9. Contemplative Practices for Teaching the Sciences 10. Enhancing Students’ Mindfulness Practice Through Philosophy of Mind 11. Creating Mindful and Self-Aware Counseling Practitioners: Centering Privilege and Oppression <strong>Part IV: Contemplative Practices for Community and Institutional Change </strong>12.<b> </b>Reflections on Developing a Campus-Wide Workshop Series on Contemplative Practice and Social Justice 13. Using Neuroscience and Mindfulness to Form New Habits of Mind Around Race 14. Contemplative Learning Communities: Transforming Universities by Embedding Contemplative Practices in the Academic Life</p>