Opening the Contemplative Mind in the Sociology Classroom

Abstract

We examined the usefulness of mindfulness practices for developing understandings of the intersection between the individual and social milieu. After incorporating mindfulness practices in a sociology course, we conducted open-ended surveys asking students’ understanding of mindfulness practice and its usefulness to their learning. We asked students to describe their experience in a sentence of “Who, does what, to what or whom, when, where, how, and why.” Students identified themselves (39.4 percent), class (40.9 percent), and the instructor (19.7 percent) as the leading actor (“who”), and each group showed varied understanding of mindfulness practices. This finding suggests that it is important to consider the instructor-led nature when incorporating mindfulness in courses. Second, our data show that nearly all students reported mindfulness practices as positive experiences to their learning. Students’ enhanced self-awareness was a crucial part of their experience, which led them to developing appreciation about differences in perspectives and a sense of social connectedness. This finding suggests that mindfulness practices have great potential to help students develop sociological understanding of intersections between individuals and society. We argue mindfulness is worth further consideration as an educational tool to integrate the factual and mechanical aspects of learning and the deeper and holistic facets in sociology education.