Rural teachers’ attitudes towards mindfulness-based school interventions

I examined the perspectives of 11 teachers with experience in rural settings on school-based mindfulness interventions using a consensual qualitative research method (CQR; Hill, 2012). With the foundational orientation of Community-Based Participatory Research, the potential impact of the rural setting of the schools was examined as most previous research on mindfulness-based school interventions was based on data from schools in urban settings. Results were consistent with seven domains: teacher factors, school factors, student factors, barriers to use, rural community attitude, successful strategies, and recommendations for future implementation. Overall, the attitudes and perceptions of teachers with experience in rural schools were largely specific to the individual and aligned with existing research. School factors, student factors, and the rural community’s attitude toward mindfulness were found to impact the usefulness of school-based mindfulness interventions. Finally, findings were mixed regarding whether mindfulness activities need to be adjusted to meet the unique needs of rural schools. Researchers engaged in providing services to rural schools or implementing programming should consider the unique needs of rural schools along with the feedback from teachers directly involved with students as they create and implement mindfulness programming.