Professor Magee explores intersecting issues of race, racism and U.S. law using mindfulness- and compassion-based practices. Discussing her work across inter-related sub-fields — transformative education, law practice and community-based work for justice — she highlights ways of enhancing collaborations across categories of real and perceived difference using contemplative techniques for teaching, learning and working together …
Topic Archives:
Using a contemplative conflict resolution intervention to promote teachers’ and youth’s beneficial engagement in controversial discussions and intergroup encounters
Enabling respectful discussion between rival social viewpoints is currently one of humanity’s most important challenges. Powerful socio-psychological barriers, including negative intergroup perceptions, emotions, beliefs and biases, are known to play a crucial role in fueling social conflicts, by increasing intolerance and blame toward the outgroup. A mindfulness-based compassionate conflict engagement intervention, which combines mindfulness, empathy, …
Mindfulness-based Critical Consciousness Training for Teachers (MBCC-T): Development, pilot test, and comparison to two control groups
African American, Latino, Native American, and Southeast Asian students, demonstrate significant educational underachievement and poorer behavioral outcomes compared to their White and other Asian American peers. These disparities emerge as early as preschool, and are reflected in poorer achievement test scores, and higher rates of drop-out, suspension, and expulsion from school. While acknowledging that many …
Master Lectures: What’s ‘Critical’ About ‘Critical First-Person’ Perspectives?
Perhaps the hallmark of the distinctive forms of teaching developed at Brown and deemed “Integrative Contemplative Pedagogy” is a method of classroom study of meditation practices called the “Critical First-Person Perspective.” In this method, students try out specific contemplative practices that are linked to a Third-Person study of texts and contexts. In other words, they …
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Master Lectures: The Transdisciplinary Study of Contemplative Practices: Challenges and Opportunities
Research on contemplative practices and contemplation-based interventions has grown exponentially in recent years, and many outstanding studies and publications have advanced this emerging field with their excellence. Of the various pathways to success in research, one of the most promising focuses on the notion of transdisciplinarity. Conceptualized as an approach that emerges from the interaction …
Master Lectures: Mindfulness-Informed Acceptance-Based Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety
Compassion is emerging as a major focus in the new field of contemplative science, which integrates scientific research with contemplative practice, exploring its real-world applications such as health, education and general well-being. Standardized protocols, such as Stanford University’s CCT (Compassion Cultivation Training), UCSD’s Mindful Self-Compassion, and Emory University’s CBCT (Cognitively-Based Compassion Training), are today offered …
Closing Keynote “Where Is This All Going, and What’s Love—and Insight, Embodied Wisdom, and Community—Got to Do With It?”
In this closing keynote, Jon will ask some hard questions about the mindfulness explosion and contemplative studies at the intersection and cutting edges of science, scholarship, society, and the larger world. As background, it might be helpful to read his paper, linked below.
Catherine Kerr Award Ceremony and Lectures: “Education for Peace: Transforming our Schools with Mindfulness and Compassion”
Educators and philosophers have pointed to the importance of quality education for building a peaceful world. This requires the intentional cultivation of wholesome school environments where students feel supported and encouraged to thrive. However, increasing demands on teachers have resulted in high levels of stress and burnout, which can hinder their sustained commitment to teach …
Master Lectures: Integrating First–person Inquiry in the Higher Education Classroom
At the heart of contemplative pedagogy is the cultivation of what psychologist DeWit (1991) and neurobiologist Varela (1996) have called “first–person inquiry,” a method that valorizes critical subjectivity in science and social science endeavors. This lecture briefly surveys diverse theoretical foundations of this method, with emphasis on application to higher education teaching and learning in …
Keynote: To Be of Benefit: The Promise of Contemplative Research and Practice
In 2002, His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote, “The desperate state of our world calls us to action…We all are responsible for creating a better future.” Over 15 years later, those words inspire and alarm. Enormous suffering exists in our world today. Mental health problems and adversity are prevalent and impairing, including among children and …
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