Education Commons^™

An Inquiry Into Higher Education’S Controversial ‘Countermovement’: Contemplative Pedagogy, Roberta Mary Pughe

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Academic interest in “mindfulness” has grown exponentially since the 1980s. Along with the dissemination of mindfulness came an appropriation of contemplative sacred texts and the somatic psychologies along with a misperception of its concepts and practices as inherently religious. Contemplative pedagogy, which addresses the application of contemplative studies to the classroom and its community, is therefore equally likely to be misunderstood. Despite recent studies claiming the benefits of contemplative pedagogy on students’ mental health, test results, and personal and interpersonal relationships, contemplative pedagogy is still widely underutilized; this suggests such a misunderstanding of the field and could explain the lack …