Knowing Through Discomfort: A Mindfulness-based Critical Social Work Pedogogy

Abstract

Critical social work education has largely focused on engaging students in the conceptual and cognitive processes of learning and reflection. Other forms of knowing and transformation through the body, emotions, and spirit have been submerged under the “discursive rationality” paradigm. Proposing an integrated mind-body-spirit pedagogy in critical social work education, this paper introduces the practice of mindfulness and discusses its transformative potential for critical social work education. In particular, the author discusses how the practice of mindfulness was integrated in a course on identity and diversity in critical social work practice to facilitate students to learn through their feeling of discomfort.