Over the past 10 years, youth-meditation programmes have been developed in countries such as England (Mindfulness in Schools Project, DotB), the USA (Mindful Schools and MindUp), Canada (Mindful Education), Israel (The Mindfulness Language) and India (The Alice Project). Meditation can be a secular practice and does not require any change in belief systems or religious affiliations (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). breath, an external object, a person whom we love, a deity), (2) dispassionately observing internal and external distractions and regularly disengaging from them and (3) focusing attention from distractions back to the attentional anchor. ( 2008) outlined three steps involved in meditation practice: (1) directing focus to an “attentional anchor” (e.g.
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The underlying premise of all these techniques involves attending deliberately to internal and/or external phenomena with full concentration. Among the popular meditation practices are acem, centering prayer, loving kindness meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness-based stress reduction programme, shamatha, transcendental meditation (TM), vipassana and zen (see Table 1). Meditation refers to the deliberate act of regulating attention through the observation of thoughts, emotions and body states (Black et al. 1).Īlthough contemplative education has not typically formed part of school curriculum in the Western world, its use is on the rise, particularly through the practice of meditation in schools (Garrison Institute 2005 Jennings, 2008). This innovative form of education equips students with perspectives and techniques useful for bringing forth their own genuine way of connecting their heart and mind (p. Suggestions are made to stimulate future research and to assist in the development of more efficacious applications for meditation in schools.Ĭontemplative education challenges and supports students in ways that greatly expand upon traditional academic approaches. A conceptual model is put forward based on two propositions: proposition 1-meditation positively influences student success by increasing cognitive functioning proposition 2-meditation positively influences student success by increasing emotional regulation. Programme elements such as duration, frequency of practice and type of instructor influenced student outcomes. Transcendental meditation programmes had a higher percentage of significant effects than mindfulness-based and other types of meditation programmes, but this may be to do with the settings and programme delivery rather than the technique itself. Sixty-seven per cent of the results had small effects on student outcomes, 24 % of the results had medium effect strength and 9 % showed a large effect of meditation upon student outcomes.
Of the 76 effect sizes calculated, 61 % were statistically significant. The overall number of participants in the effect size analyses was 1,797. In total, there were 76 results where effect sizes could be calculated. This paper reviewed evidence from 15 peer-reviewed studies of school meditation programmes with respect to three student outcomes: well-being, social competence and academic achievement.
Schools need reliable evidence about the outcomes of meditation programs before they consider if and how such programmes can influence learning agendas, curriculum and timetables.