Mindfulness Discourse Communities: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Community-Based Curriculum for At-Risk Youth

• In Event: 43.080 - Sheraton Roundtable Six - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 43.080-2 - Critical Listening and Thinking With Diverse Narratives

Abstract

Mindfulness has woven through American education for decades as an enduring concept aimed at reforming teachers, students, and classrooms. In borrowing from critical literacy practices, this pilot study adopts a similar method to explore the predominant discourse framing student identity in mindfulness curricular interventions used for at-risk youth. The study aims to understand multimodal texts produced by two mindfulness discourse communities (MDC), situated within the socio-cultural contexts where students reside. A critical discourse analysis of these texts examines the present knowledge(s) and purposes that legitimate mindfulness within two neighborhood-based MDCs. The evidence informs the design of a larger study and speaks to a culturally responsive agenda, which seeks to move practioners toward a humanizing, race-visible response to mindfulness practices.

Author

• Jennifer Catherine Dauphinais, Teachers College, Columbia University