Abstract:
This research examined the relationship between mindfulness and academic optimism in schools in North Alabama. Academic optimism is a construct made of up the tenets of collective efficacy, faculty trust, and academic emphasis. Mindfulness, individual and organizational, joins academic optimism to create meaningful leadership strategies that can be used develop more effective school. It was hypothesized in the study that the greater degree of a school’s individual and organizational mindfulness, the greater the degree of academic optimism. Additionally, it was hypothesized that the variable of socio-economic status (SES) of the school would have a significant impact on mindfulness and academic optimism of the school. This study examined three school systems located in Northern Alabama with a total of 577 elementary, middle, and high school teachers in 39 schools. Two survey instruments and the SES of each school were used to address these inquiries. Mindfulness was measured using the School Mindfulness Scale (Hoy & Gage, 2003) and academic optimism was measured using the School Academic Optimism Survey (Hoy, 2005). As predicted, the hypotheses addressing mindfulness and academic optimism were supported by the outcomes from this study which demonstrated that the greater the degree of a school’s (organizational) mindfulness, the greater the degree of the school’s academic optimism. Significantly, results for socio-economic status (SES) showed that influence of socio-economic status was minimal. The study confirmed much of the literature in regard to the relationships of organizational mindfulness, which is, but not limited to practicing an open, creative, multi-perspective state of being, academic optimism, and SES.
