Investigating Mindfulness Practices for Student Empowerment in a U.S. Title I High School Setting

• In Event: Perspectives of International Citizen-Practitioners Respecting and Embracing Responsibility for Enhancing Holistic Well-Being

Abstract

This mixed methods intervention study uses authentic inquiry to investigate the salutary effects of a mindfulness program enacted with sophomores in an early college NYC high school. Data from two administrations of a heuristic and cogen dialogues indicates that after one year, study participants reported adopting the practices to alleviate stress associated with academic pressures and the underlying harm of racial discrimination experienced in- and out-of-school. This study is an example of a successful interorganizational collaboration to mutually benefit stakeholders (i.e, public school students of color, their teacher, and researchers).

According to a recent survey (CDC, 2017), 31.6% of NYC high school students felt sad or hopeless every day for 2 or more weeks with 16.2% seriously considering and 11% having attempted suicide within the past 12 months. Participants in this research (95% students of color) balance a rigorous curriculum and face a myriad of socio-economic challenges and race-related injustices. Students consistently express the need for social-emotional support, “decompression” and “resetting” strategies. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the application of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) towards supporting student agency and enhancing well-being.

This study is grounded in the principles of authentic inquiry which dictate that research participants directly benefit from their involvement (Alexakos, 2015). Mindfulness, a special quality of attention (Kabat-Zinn, 1994), is framed as a secular, sociocultural, and multidimensional construct. Well-being is considered to be a skill that has four constituents (i.e., attention, connection, insight, and life purpose), each shaped through mental training (Davidson, 2018).

Twenty-three sophomores (15-16 years of age; 74% female) participated in a year-long mindfulness program conducted by their teacher (one of the study’s PIs) in the school’s Mindfulness Center. Participants met weekly for a 45-minute session to engage in practices drawn from the Mindful Schools curriculum (Mindful Schools, n.d.). Heuristic methodology coupled with cogen dialogues (Tobin, 2014) were key components to this work.

Adolescent students often frame their life purpose as academic success. Unsurprisingly, heuristic data (both pre- and post-intervention) indicated high means for the purpose-in-life characteristics. While low levels of resilience (i.e., insight) among participants emerged from cogens, a promising finding from a paired samples T-test was a statistically significant increase in self-reports for the trait, “I use breathing to manage my emotions” with M(SD)=2.55(1.05) at time 1 and M(SD)=3.10(1.07) at time 2 (t(19) = -2.15.64, p = .045). Results indicate that students who experienced MBIs adopted these practices to alleviate stress associated with rigorous academic demands and compounded by racial injustices.

This study is unique in its focus on how adolescent students of color may be empowered if given an opportunity to actively engage in MBIs towards the enhancement of their well-being. It also exemplifies the value of a holistic approach to educational research that bridges theoretical frameworks with their practical applications through a collaboration of a college professor, a teacher and her students in a Title I high school setting.

Authors

• Malgorzata Powietrzynska, Brooklyn College

• Linda Noble, Brooklyn College