Conscious Connections: Exploring Teacher Perceptions of Interpersonal Mindfulness and Understanding Its Application in Education

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Abstract

Conscious Connections was a school-based study implemented to measure the impact of a brief interpersonal mindfulness-based intervention on high school teachers’ levels of mindfulness and their perceptions of interpersonal mindfulness, social connectedness, and social justice mindsets. To achieve this, the researcher defined mindfulness at the core, intrapersonal, and interpersonal levels, developed instruments to measure them, and interventions to cultivate them. Through a quasiexperimental, single-subject research design utilizing mixed methods, data were obtained before, during, and after a mindfulness-based intervention. While quantitative data showed positive correlations between these core constructs, qualitative data expanded upon the “how’s” and “why’s” of this change. Results affirmed the critical importance of interpersonal mindfulness in schools and provided insight into how it may be further cultivated.

Author

• Robert Ryan Carlson, Central Connecticut State University