Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons^™

Analyzing Environmental Education In Northern Mississippi And Its Impact On Student Outcomes, Vishnu S. Gadepalli

Honors Theses

This thesis examines environmental education in public high schools in northern Mississippi, investigating how educators describe its presence, delivery, and institutional support in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harm. Seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with high school teachers across four northern Mississippi schools, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed through iterative thematic coding under Institutional Review Board approval. Five themes emerged: opportunistic curricular integration, time and standards as overriding structural constraints, passive institutional support, student receptivity tempered by limited awareness, and significant variation across school contexts with one magnet school as a clear outlier. The study concludes that environmental education in these …

Contemplative Pause: Practice As Pedagogy In A Liberal Arts Classroom, Sienna R. Craig, Sid Babla, Abbey Savin

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This article discusses the integration of contemplative pedagogies – including but not limited to yoga nidra – into two case study courses at an elite private liberal arts institution. We begin by describing the structure, context, and nature of this experiment in contemplative pedagogy, considering this experiment in the context of what we call the “liberal arts promise” at a moment of heightened mental health crises across institutions of higher education and increasing public skepticism about the value(s) of higher education. The article takes as a starting point the idea that building forms of contemplative pause into the fabric of …

A Mindful Approach To Language Learning: Investigating Attitudes, Self-Efficacy, And Well-Being In The Efl Classroom, Sharon E. Fayerberger, Anca D. Cehan

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

A Mindful Approach to Language Learning: Investigating Attitudes, Self-Efficacy, and Well-Being in the EFL Classroom

This study aimed to explore the effect of a 13-week mindfulness intervention program conducted in English, within the framework of English Foreign Language lessons for 10th-grade students. The aspects researched were attitudes, language self-efficacy, and student well-being, which are essential components for successful foreign language learning. Fifty-seven 10th-grade students were divided into an experimental group and a control group. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining quantitative questionnaires to assess the students' self-efficacy and attitudes pre- and post-stage, and qualitative data collected from semi-structured questionnaires, which …

Affirmative Action For Women In Higher Education And Stem: A Policy Framework To Transform India’S Scientific Landscape, Dileep Verma, Pushpender Yadav, Shashikant Nishant Sharma

Journal of International Women's Studies

This brief proposes an outcomes-oriented affirmative-action framework to accelerate women’s participation and leadership across India’s higher education and STEM pipeline, aligning national priorities for a “Self-reliant India” (Atmanirbhar Bharat) with the United Nation’s SDG-5 (gender equality). Near-parity in overall HE enrolment contrasts with women’s underrepresentation in engineering/technology programmes, research roles, and senior faculty positions as revealed by the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) (Department of Science & Technology, n.d.-a; Ministry of Education, 2020; Sahay, 2022). Supernumerary seats, re-entry fellowships, and pilot programmes (e.g., KIRAN/WOS, GATI, WEST) show promise but lack scale, evaluation, and accountability linkages (Department of Science …

Arts-Based Experiential Learning And Human Flourishing: A Perma-Informed Case Study Of Community Mural Making, Lindsay A. Beddes, Karen Yescavage, Krista Bridgmon

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

The worsening mental health epidemic among college students is marked by significant risk for loneliness, anxiety, and depression. Given that the demand for mental health care is outpacing institutional capacity, creative solutions are needed to augment traditional reactive interventions. In this qualitative research, we used narrative case study to explore the transformative power of community mural-making as experiential learning. Drawing on Seligman’s PERMA model (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment) we investigated how creative expression can cultivate positive psychological states to help students flourish (1991; 2011; 2018). Mural making promotes the crucial skills of teamwork, communication, and problem-solving. Outdoor public …

Principles, Frameworks And Challenges Underpinning Holistic Education In The 21st Century, Kumar Laxman

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Holistic education is an educational paradigm that is gaining increasing attention in educational circles due to it being eclectic and inclusive in nature. It attempts to embed a wholesome approach to life including spiritual and philosophical ideals in its pedagogical elements to foster a more fulsome development of the individual. In this paper, research literature is parsed through and content analysed to gain a deeper understanding of the historical and curricular underpinnings of the holistic education movement through a theoretical interpretive lens. The beginnings and evolution of the holistic education movement are examined in conjunction with the broad definitions of …

(Re)Membering The Work Of Septima Clark Amid The Gift Of Chaos, Terrance J. Lewis, Alex Chisholm, Kristen E. Duncan

Occasional Paper Series

The current state of American society and the future of its democracy have caused many Americans to develop feelings of hopelessness, especially pertaining to education. In the spirit of Sankofa and using Dillard’s (2021) Spirit of Our Work, we (re)member the work of Septima Clark to seek what can be learned and applied during this period of societal unease and educational uncertainty. By (re)membering Septima Clark, we provide recommendations for thought practice that formal K-12 and community educators might consider as we navigate educational spaces amid an open and direct period of intellectual warfare.

Called Beyond Aspirations: Undergraduate Vocation In Teacher Education, Rebecca Pruitt

Education Department Faculty Articles

Sharing the results of a multi-year journey of embedding vocational exploration into a major course in education, this article presents the progression of students’ thinking in relation to their calling. Student responses from the beginning to the end of the semester reveal expanding views of calling related to their chosen profession. Arriving at the middle of junior year with budding confidence regarding career goals, students are presented with vocation literature that provides language to describe these aspirations. Utilizing reflection prompts to process course assignments leads to further engagement with vocation concepts, extending student views to include progressively outwardly oriented ambitions. …

Defining Teacher Envelopment: A Non-Aristotelian Approach To Meta-Practices In The Philosophy Of Teacher Education, Rob Blom

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

The late Jonathan Neufeld argued that redefining teacher development required meta-practices, yet he never defined what these meta-practices were. To define them rigorously requires grounding teacher cultivation practices within coherent structures of truth capable of withstanding philosophical scrutiny—a challenge intensified by post- truth discourse that flattens epistemological depth in secularised educational theory. This paper advances a theory of teacher envelopment to complement conventional teacher development through identifying mindfulness and discernment as foundational meta-practices grounded in non-Aristotelian systems. The framework rests on three interrelated concepts: (1) truth paradigms encompassing contemplative, articulatory, and embodied dimensions; (2) epistemological depth as extensional practices that …

No Mud, No Lotus: Ways To Metabolize Suffering, Heesoon Bai, Heather Williams, Renata Cueto De Souza, Mel Voulgaris, Charles Scott, Anna Rumjahn, Avraham Cohen, Zuzana Vasko Dr.

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper builds on the foundation of mainly Buddhist and existential contemplative philosophies a theoretical and practical framework for understanding and working with suffering as a transformational setting for human development and maturation. The authors propose that the first step in this path of transformation is radical acceptance of suffering as fundamental “truth” about human life, which could re-orient us from the usual mindset of avoidance, denial, dismissal, moralizing, or aggressive elimination of suffering. The next step in this reorientation is seeing suffering as containing valuable “nutrients” for human development and maturation, just as, analogically speaking, mud can grow lotus …

Hear My Voice As Who I Am: Theorizing The Essence Of Poetry In Holistic Global Citizenship Education, Shue-Kei Joanna Mok

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Poetry as an imaginative language art has long been perceived as the core of humanity, the foundation of human advancement (Arnold,1880; Rorty, 2007). By composing, critiquing, and sharing/performing poems, not only does the process enrich and deepen one’s relationship to oneself, understanding and reflecting on the contextual, historical, cultural, social, and creative backgrounds of the poems and poets allows one to have greater connections with the broader environment across temporal, spatial, and social dimensions with human and non-human beings.

This paper first frames the core concepts and values of global citizenship from a Confucius perspective to emphasize the significance of …

Contemplative Pedagogy, Mindfulness And Reflection In Teacher Education, Karen O. Ragoonaden Dr., Leslie Shayer

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This study explores the intersections of contemplative pedagogy, mindfulness practices and reflection in education. Contemplative pedagogy and mindfulness practices were introduced to three cohorts in teacher education, in graduate education, and in professional development education. This pedagogy and the practices provided a time, a place and a community to engage in personal and professional reflections about teaching and learning. The themes identified in this study demonstrated that engaging in contemplative pedagogy in a nine-week mindfulness course provided increased opportunities to reflect on self-awareness, on wellbeing and on the professional practice of education. The qualitative results of this study indicate that …

From Literary Encounter To Responsible Action: Adapting Lonergan's Transcendental Method To En2375, Bonita Pfleiger

San Jose - Lonergan Chair in Catholic Philosophy

Bernard Lonergan characterizes the transcendental method as the “concrete and dynamic unfolding” of human knowing (Lonergan, 1997, p. 454). This unfolding involves the operations of experience, understanding, judgment, and decision. The operations describe the structure of human knowing, while the transcendental precepts express the standards by which they should be carried out: “Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, and Be responsible” (p. 450). Together, they provide a cognitive framework for examining how students come to understand, make warranted judgments, and act responsibly. Within philosophical hermeneutics, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur describe understanding as an ongoing interpretive process rather than a …

Traversing The Broken Staircase: The Experiences Of Academic Neglect For Black & Brown First-Generation College Students, Kashmeel D. Mckoena

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Although Black and Brown students are diversifying college campuses and opening doors for their families as new cohorts of first-generation collegians, they often find themselves silently dealing with the aftermath of academic neglect from U.S. secondary education. This phenomenon can be understood from extant literature as absence of reliable guidance, mentorship, resources, and support that help students persist and succeed in their academic goals. Existing explanations of grit and resilience (Duckworth et al., 2007) not only erase the existence and impact of academic neglect, but also mask the creative solutions and compensatory strategies that Black and Brown first-generation college students …

Reimagining Education Through Intuitive Interspecies Communication: Listening, Learning, And Belonging Beyond The Human, Avantika Mathur, Megan Tucker, Anita Vallala, Cathrine Nyquist

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Conventional educational paradigms have long been shaped by worldviews that centre human rationality, and exclude the agency, intelligence, and communicative capacity of non-human beings. While holistic and contemplative education movements have begun to open space for alternative approaches, a broader reconceptualization is needed – one that embraces the living world as intelligent, interconnected, and full of meaning.

This submission explores intuitive interspecies communication (IIC), described as the direct, non-verbal exchange between humans and other animals that draws on intuitive capacities. IIC is widespread and growing rapidly as a global professional practice, and academic interest in this topic has expanded in …

Geopoetics: Expanding The Philosophy Of Teacher Education, Linda M. Craig Dr

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Amidst our accelerating ecological crisis, this essay argues for a fundamental reimagining of teacher education through Kenneth White's theory of geopoetics. Drawing on complexity science and Whitehead's process philosophy, I trace a paradigm shift from mechanistic models of education - characterised by fixed knowledge transmission and neoliberal performativity - toward a relational, orientation grounded in emergence and becoming. Geopoetics offers a transdisciplinary framework that dissolves boundaries between science, poetry, philosophy, and spirituality, positioning education not as content delivery but as participation in the creative unfolding of life. Through an exploration of Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain as geopoetic spiritual practice. …

Poetry As Liminal Inquiry: Illuminating Complexity, Mysticism, And Embodied Knowing, Vicki Boley Dr.

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper explores poetry as a form of liminal inquiry, positioning poetic practice as an embodied, intuitive, and relational mode of meaning-making within the complexity of teaching and learning. Drawing on a reflective collection of poems written during a doctoral course on Mysticism and Activism in Education, the author revisits this work from a current perspective as an educator and scholar, using complexity theory to understand both the poetic process and classroom learning as nonlinear, emergent, and relational systems. Rather than yielding to linear thinking or single answers, the paper argues that poetic inquiry mirrors how insight develops in complex …

Can One Learn From Dreams?, Anastasia Lavrenyuk

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This reflective essay explores the educational significance of dream-based and intuitive knowledge through the lens of a field experience in the Peruvian Amazon. While participating in a course on sustainability and Indigenous knowledge, I encountered a member of the Ese Eja community who described how medicinal plant wisdom once came through dreams—through spiritual connection with the forest. This moment prompted a personal and scholarly inquiry into how non-rational, subjective ways of knowing have historically shaped both scientific and cultural breakthroughs, from the structure of chemical element benzene to Indigenous learning systems. Drawing on examples from physics, neuroscience, and Indigenous epistemologies, …

In The Problem Lies The Solution: How Digital Mindfulness Can Address The College Students’ Mental Health Crisis And Support Holistic Education, Steve Haberlin

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

The mental health of today’s college students remains a serious concern. The alarming trend of greater psychological distress among undergraduates shows no signs of slowing. Excessive smartphone usage, screen time, and social media have been attributed as partial factors. However, what if forms of digital mindfulness and technology-assisted contemplative practices are the key to assisting students with stress, anxiety, depression and other problems? In this article, the author posits that innovations, such as neurofeedback-loop meditation platforms that dramatically increase focus, virtual reality platforms featuring in depth-meditation instruction, and Artificial Intelligence have the potential to address the crisis, establishing a refreshed …

International Students And Spiritual Capital: Meditation As A Tool To Support Student Well-Being, Anna Grigoreva, Anna Lytkina

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

In a new academic environment, international students often face more than just academic challenges, as they also navigate cultural adjustment, identity shifts, digital overload and emotional stress. These multidimensional challenges are further intensified by performance pressures and rapidly evolving educational technologies. This article explores the role of meditation as a contemplative practice that may support international students’ adaptation within the American higher education system. The article focuses on how international students draw upon inner strength, purpose, and resilience to navigate and sustain themselves through periods of transition and difficulty. Using autoethnography as a primary methodological approach, the authors analyze their …

Nurturing The Spiritual Core In Teachers Within The Nexus Of Science And Spirituality, Sarina C. Molina

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This reflective essay explores the intersection of science and spirituality in nurturing teachers’ inner lives as a foundation for supporting student well-being. Against the backdrop of a global mental health crisis, it integrates insights from neuroscience, Indigenous wisdom traditions, and values-based education to advocate for a holistic mind–body–nature connection. Emerging research on neuroplasticity, heart–brain coherence, and self-transcendence has shown the physiological and psychological benefits of spiritual cultivation for educators. Drawing on Indigenous epistemologies, this essay highlights contemplative and heart-centered practices that foster self-transformation, resilience, and authentic relationality. Practical applications for teacher education, curriculum design, and community engagement illustrate how spiritual …

The Calculus Of Difference: Pluralism And Integration Through Education In India, Deepa Srikantaiah

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper introduces a calculus-based conceptual framework to examine how India sustains pluralistic integration across its extraordinary religious, linguistic, and cultural diversity. Drawing on mathematical principles of integration, continuity, and the Infinity Principle, the analysis demonstrates how social cohesion emerges from sustained attention to the infinitesimal: the localized communities, languages, and practices that constitute India's complex social fabric. The framework positions education as the primary integrative mechanism, functioning analogously to the mathematical process of integration by decomposing social complexity into comprehensible parts and reassembling them into collective understanding.

Through historical analysis spanning from the Indus Valley Civilization to contemporary India, …

Ancient Wisdom & Its Cultural Relevance: Reimagining Deeper Learning In Science Classrooms Through The Lens Of Yoga And Vedānta, Raaghav Pandya

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Contemporary calls to reconceptualize how science is taught and understood have brought deeper learning to the forefront of education at-large for its emphasis on critical perspectives, creativity, and student-centered inquiry. Yet this paper argues that its prevailing framework remains constrained by Cartesian dualism, a materialist foundation that disassociates the individual from self, other, and nature, and falls short of addressing the mental health, environmental, and cultural challenges facing youth today. To address this limitation, this paper proposes a complementary convergence between deeper learning and the contemplative traditions of Yoga and Vedānta, whose ancient paradigms of self-inquiry, interconnectedness, and well-being offer …

Toward A Post-Modern Daoist Pedagogy: Bridging Complexity And Dao Through Inner Cultivation And Autopoietic Currere, Jie Yu, Jingyu Liu

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This article first critically examines the call to reenchant the world as it resonates within a middle space between science and mysticism and then connects key ideas from complexity theory and systems thinking on complex adaptive systems with two seminal Daoist texts: the Neiye (《內業》, Inner Cultivation), a proto-Daoist chapter from the Guanzi anthology (4th–3rd century B.C.E.), and the Huangting Jing (《黃庭經》, Yellow Court Scripture), a later Daoist classic (3rd–4th century C.E.). Through this dialogue, the article advocates a post-modern Daoist pedagogy through inner cultivation and autopoietic currere—an autopoietic process wherein curriculum emerges organically through participatory dialogue …

When Quantum Physics Meets Laozi, Jing Lin

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper explores the profound convergence between quantum physics and Laozi’s Daoist philosophy, proposing a quantum-Daoist cosmology as a transformative foundation for reimagining education. Drawing on core principles of quantum physics—such as wave-particle duality, entanglement, and the observer effect, and Laozi’s teachings on Dao and De, the paper argues for a cosmology in which reality is energetic, relational, and morally ordered. While quantum science reveals the unseen, interconnected nature of existence, Laozi advances this view by emphasizing the role of virtue as an energetic and ethical force that sustains the universe. The paper proposes that meditative practice and the cultivation …

Bridging The Abyss: Reclaiming Spirituality In Academic Knowledge Production, Neil Boland

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Over recent decades, Western academia has shown a growing interest in spirituality, accompanied by methodological innovations and epistemological expansion. Nevertheless, spiritual inquiry continues to be subtly subordinated to scientific rationalism, with Western science often presiding as gatekeeper over what is considered legitimate knowledge. Drawing on Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ concept of abyssal thinking, this article argues that spiritual and experiential forms of knowing remain largely relegated to the far side of an epistemic divide, valued only insofar as they can be reframed within scientific norms. Despite increasing institutional recognition of spirituality in fields such as education, psychology, and medicine, …

The Thousand Mysteries That Bind Us: The Multiverse As Spiritualverse And The Holism Of Mystery, Giovanni Rossini

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

While we exist historically within evolving worldviews, we live amid the paradoxical necessity of mystery; one shared by scientists and non-scientists, theologians and atheists, and artists and philosophers alike. A thousand mysteries bind us with their imperative presence. While pre modern astronomers pondered the mysterious randomness of the night sky, today our sense of cosmological awe is fuelled not only by its randomness, but by a new scientific theory that says multiple skies inhabit the creation. The multiverse — a thesis emerging from cosmological science, wherein parallel worlds are posited to coexist — augments mystery. In this paper, I explore …

Editors’ Introduction, Kathleen R. Kesson Dr., Susan H. Edgerton, Jing Lin

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This is the introduction to the Special Issue

Remixing Dialogue: A Case Study On Perceptions Of Hip Hop Pedagogy In A Professional Learning Course, Kelly J. Thelen

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

This qualitative case study examines how teachers’ decision-making and professional autonomy shift while participating in a Hip Hop Pedagogy Professional Learning course supported by structured FIXIT (Lo & Wachter, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d; Wachter & Lo, 2024) game-facilitated dialogue in a rural, culturally and linguistically diverse Midwest community. Grounded in Freire’s (1970) Critical Pedagogy, Ladson-Billings’ (1995) Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (Paris and Alim, 2017), and Adult Learning Theory (Knowles et al., 2005), the study explores the reclamation of agency by teachers in a time of constrained creativity and educator autonomy shaped by strict policy environments, an emphasis on …

Correcting And Connecting Character Formation, Dane C. Joseph

Essays in Education

This essay details some assumptions that the author, through his lived experience working in higher education character formation and assessment, has identified as being potentially problematic to institutional endeavors to form character. These assumptions are framed using theoretical perspectives from within the behavioral and social sciences. A few solutions are offered, with the main one being to reframe formation from passive, single events to an activity navigated responsibly by and with all stakeholders, as well as to assess formation via everyday lived experiences both within and outside the classroom.