Mindfulness in Multicultural Education: Critical Race Feminist Perspectives

Grounded in critical race feminism, this book explores mindfulness as an empowering approach in multicultural education. The author explores how learners of multicultural education—by (re)centering the body through mindfulness with concrete strategies and scaffolded practice—can be empowered to handle the activated emotions and deep self-inquiry that come with the work of social justice, liberation, and anti-racism. This book includes counter stories of students of colors and offers both an epistemological and a curricular approach to mindfulness in multicultural education, including discussion of theory and key principles in addition to ten modules with practices to engage learners. These modules can be directly applied as the basis for curricular changes in teacher education and university-wide social justice courses, or they can be independently read by learners interested in enhancing their wellbeing and social justice. Written for teacher preparation and university social justice courses, this book encourages educators to contextualize their mindfulness practice within a critique of systems of oppression and ask questions about how mindfulness can empower action towards a more just society.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Overview; 1. An overview of Mindfulness in Multicultural Education and Critical Race Feminism; Part II: Theoretical and Epistemological Foundations; 2. Mindfulness in Contexts; 3. Critical Race Feminisms; 4. Critical Multicultural Education, Spirituality, and Liberating Pedagogy; 5. Students’ Voices: Empirical Research Findings (co-authored by Raisa Blazquez); Part III: Modules for Instructing Mindfulness in Multicultural Education; 6. Module One: Introduction to Mindfulness: Tapping into the breath with inhales and exhales; 7. Module Two: Sitting with Discomfort: Scanning the body and noticing; 8. Module Three: Integration and Trauma/Racial Trauma: Grounding in the Body; 9. Module Four: Strength and Resilience: Centering Practices; 10. Module Five: Belonging and Connecting to Spirit: Offering to Self and Ancestors; 11. Module Six: Interconnectedness: Connecting to Nature and the Body; 12. Module Seven: Stabilizing Attention and Directing Energy; 13. Module Eight: Teaching from the Heart: Self-Compassion Practices; 14. Module Nine: Empowerment and Agency: Mindful joy and freedom; 15. Module Ten: Liberatory Practices: Mindful resilience and creativity

About the Author :
Kathryn Esther McIntosh is Associate Professor in the College of Education, Oregon State University. Her work focuses on teacher preparation, critical multilingual and multicultural, and language equity education. She is the daughter of a Peruvian immigrant and has taught Spanish/English bilingual elementary school in California before moving to higher education. Her research is grounded in critical race feminisms, pedagogies in critical multicultural education, and Latinx communities in education. She has published about culturally responsive practices in teacher education, focusing on the difficult emotional work of preservice teachers in raising consciousness. She has completed more than 340 hours of yoga philosophy/meditation immersion training, has 200-hour Yoga Alliance teacher certification, and has been a practitioner of yoga and meditation for fourteen years.

Review :
"At a time of significant world disruption imbued with egregious social inequalities, Kathryn E. McIntosh offers a radical, liberating vision of multicultural education connected to a view of mindfulness that employs critical race feminist perspectives. Like Latina feminist scholar Gloria E. Anzaldúa and others before her, McIntosh recognizes the importance of internal work in the struggle for social transformation. This view of multicultural education is exactly what is needed now to cultivate a new generation of sentipensantes, students able to work with both their intellectual ability and their sensory processes to dream new dreams and to tip the consciousness of the world toward equity and justice." Laura I. Rendón, author of Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy, Stylus Press "Situated within feminist critical race theory, this book makes an invaluable contribution to both mindful pedagogy and multicultural education. It problematizes and deepens Western mindfulness discourse by powerfully integrating embodied pedagogies and the work of feminists of color. Both scholarly and practical, the book offers mindfulness lessons that can be applied directly to one’s pedagogy. Mindfulness in Multicultural Education will help prepare future teachers for staying compassionate, centered, and attuned in the classroom. What an important contribution to the field!" Beth Berila, Ph.D., Professor in the Ethnic, Gender & Women’s Studies Department at St. Cloud State University "Kathryn McIntosh pushes the borders of mindfulness in education, challenging educators to integrate mindfulness practices rooted in our bodies, emotions, spirituality, and communities. Mindfulness in Multicultural Education is designed to support girls and women of color, who have all too often experienced oppression and injustice within the educational system. Through storytelling and sharing her direct experiences, McIntosh provides an expansive and practical guide to teaching mindfulness in ways that are healing, humanizing, loving, equitable, and ultimately, liberating." Janine Schipper, Professor of Sociology, Northern Arizona University, and co-author of Teaching with Compassion: An Educator’s Oath to Teach from the Heart "This is a book that is for all people interested in liberation; liberation from oppressive systems of society and the unease many people, especially in minoritized populations, suffer from racism and oppression. Dr. McIntosh applies a critical feminist perspective to her mindfulness journey and weaves her story into the tapestry of thinking and activism around social change and contemplative practice to give us some hope in an uncertain time. The only reason I wanted to put the book down was to get on my sitting cushion and change the world." Dr. Jeffrey Proulx, Mindfulness Center at Brown University, co-author of Beyond White Mindfulness: Critical Perspectives on Racism, Wellbeing and Liberation