Pathologizing Discourses: (De)Constructing the "Other" in the Globalization of Mindfulness in Schools

• In Event: Witnessing Collective Hope and the Moreness of Education

Abstract

With attention to a future orientation of our past, this study frames a society infatuated with mindfulness and who labors to create happiness futures and fixates upon the pathologized subject. This interdisciplinary analysis of wellness discourse(s) in globalized culture, policy, and curriculum highlights two prominent topics in a genealogical study of mindfulness. First is the focus on the production of ‘other’ embedded in wellness discourses of happiness and mindfulness. Second is making critical research relevant in discussions of social-emotional learning that moves beyond the basic assumption of curriculum as biased or normative. Instead, this theoretical paper necessitates an investigation of the predominant epistemological discourses informing the predominant narrative of marginalized students in a dialectic with wellness initiatives in schools.

Author

• Jennifer Catherine Dauphinais, Teachers College, Columbia University