Mindful working and skilful means: Enhancing the affective elements of vocational education and training through the ethical foundations of mindfulness

Abstract

Although the standardised curriculum and assessment procedures of many European education systems appear to be at odds with their central ethos and principles, mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are increasingly influential in schools, colleges and higher education. Originating in Buddhist contemplative traditions, mindfulness theory and practice – which foregrounds present-moment awareness and attention – has extended its modern secular and therapeutic applications into an exponentially expanding range of fields and disciplines including psychology, psychotherapy, mind-body health practices and education at all levels. Its potential usefulness in general vocational education and training (VET) has been explored by a number of researchers and practitioners, and its application in schools and colleges is receiving increasing attention. As with many popular educational innovations, the original values and ethos of mindfulness strategies have been distorted and subverted in a number of instances in which ‘McMindfulness’ programmes have been implemented with a view to the exclusive pursuit of corporate objectives and commercial profit. Such mutated examples of MBIs are, to some degree, evident in certain spheres of the field of mindfulness and work in which the present-moment attention and stress-reduction aspects of mindfulness strategies are unduly separated from the ethical foundations for the purpose of outcome-based assessments linked to predominantly instrumentalist ends. In this sphere, it will also be important to note the possible conflicts between MBIs and competence-based models of practice. As a way of guarding against such technicist utilitarianism in MBIs, a programme of mindfulness and VET is recommended which foregrounds the ethical and affective components of vocationalism and which is informed by process-based approaches to education and training linked to the personal development of learners and trainees.