Charles Scott, Ph.D. in Education 

My educational and research interests largely revolve around two things: subjectivities (inner experience) and intersubjectivities (the intertwinings and sharings of our inner experiences). The interest in both is responsible for my focus on various forms of contemplation and contemplative inquiry: various meditative/mindfulness approaches that can involve all the dimensions of our beings: physical/somatic, aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, intuitive, moral, and of course spiritual. I am especially interested in contemplative modalities and approaches that recognize and work with all these dimensions in an integrated/integral fashion.

Recent areas of scholarly research also include, first, the sacred and explorations of its dimensions. A second interest involves exploration of what stillness means and entails with respect to contemplative practice; the classic wisdom traditions out of which many of our contemplative approaches have emerged offer profound and subtle insights into the phenomenological depths of what it means to experience stillness.

Recent Publications 

Chang, D., Scott, C. & Bai, H. (2025, forthcoming). The role of critical research and authentic academic literacy to enact change in schools. In D. Peluso & K. Berynets (Eds.), Navigating the complexities of school counselling in Canadian contexts: A comprehensive guide for counsellors, administrators, and educators. Canadian Scholars.  

Bai, H., Williams, H., Cueto de Souza, R., Yee, A., Scott, C., & Cohen, A. (2024). Contemplative inquiry as research and pedagogic method. In K. Clough & B. Flanagan (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Spirituality & Contemplative Studies (pp. 141–148). Routledge. 

Cueto de Souza, R. & Scott, C. (2024). Cultivating stillness through yoga: Considerations for a deepening of presencing mastery at the bottom of the U. International Journal of Presencing Leadership & Coaching, 1(1), 82–95. https://doi.org/10.69470/eh0wg012  

Scott, C. (2023). The farther reaches of contemplative inquiry. Holistic Education Review, 3(2). https://her.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/her/article/view/2986/2650  

Bai, H., Anderson, L., & Scott, C. (2023). Contemplation as a quintessential educational project for our times. Holistic Education Review, 3(2). https://her.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/her/article/view/2978/2654  

Scott, C., Anderson, L., & Bai, H. (2023). Hard-wired for presence in an online world: A contemplative perspective and practice guide for educators. In L. Jeffrey, A. Palalas, K. Robert and Y-L. Wong (Eds.), Presence in the online world: A contemplative perspective and practice guide for educators (pp. 111–130). Rowman & Littlefield. 

Setiani, M. Y., Scott, C., & Susanti, S. (2023). Tutors and their feedback in online tutorials: The case in a distance teaching university. The Qualitative Report, 28(8), 2421–2437. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2023.5738 

Schmidt, M., Berynets, K., & Scott, C. (2023). A new theoretical approach to enacting transformative leadership with international students. In J. Crawford (Ed.), Leadership: Advancing great leadership practices and good leaders. IntechOpen. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109355  

Cueto de Souza R., and Scott C. (2022). From mental health crisis to existential human suffering: The role of self-transcendence in contemporary mindfulness. Religions, 13(8), 681. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13080681 

Gunnlaugson, O., de Souza, R. C., Zhang, S., Yee, A., Scott, C., & Bai, H. (2022). Revisiting the nature of transformative learning experiences in contemplative higher education. Journal of Transformative Education, 20  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15413446211067285  

Scott, C., Behrisch, T., Bhattacharjee, M., Grass, S., and Bai, H. (2021). Re/turning to soil: Becoming one-bodied with the Earth. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-021-10031-1 

My teaching work has been informed by the work of Paulo Freire, Martin Buber, Heesoon Bai, Avraham Cohen, Parker Palmer, David Orr, William Pinar, Celeste Snowber, Carl Leggo, Jack Miller, Tu Weiming, Charles Taylor, and Elliot Eisner. 

With respect to the educational aspects of my interest in contemplative inquiry, I and my colleagues at CityU and SFU develop curricula and work with pedagogical and assessment practices that focus on relationality and dialogue, respect, emergent/emerging curriculum, alterity/Otherness, and a recognition of and deep desire to work with the whole person while recognizing their situatedness. As Paulo Freire (2020) would say, education is fundamentally about becoming more fully human. The renowned environmental educator David Orr expressed it beautifully: 

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more “successful” people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it. (Orr, 1991/1996) 

A significant pedagogical approach in our work, and in my former work with non-native English-speaking students, is the use of narrative as an exploratory approach: narrative as research. We have found over the years that students not only love working with storytelling and love telling their stories, but that it leads them to develop incredible insights about themselves, others, and the world (and they then come to appreciate the profound impact of literature!). It is no accident that literacy was perhaps the major focus of Paulo Freire in his revolutionary educational work. I define literacy as understandings of self, others, and the world and the abilities to convey those understandings meaningfully, effectively, and with insight and compassion, allowing us to better connect with others..  

The same can be said of arts-based approaches in education, especially in their capacity to serve as forms of narrative.  

Freire, P. (2020). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury. 

Orr, D. (1991/1996). What is education for? Context Institute. https://www.context.org/iclib/ic27/orr/  

The same can be said of arts-based approaches in education, especially in their capacity to serve as forms of narrative. 

Freire, P. (2020). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury.

Orr, D. (1991/1996). What is education for? Context Institute. https://www.context.org/iclib/ic27/orr/ 

Since 2012, I have supervised over 60 M.Ed. Leadership in Education students in writing their capstone projects or Master’s theses. 

Since 2016, I have supervised over 50 M.Ed. School Counselling students in writing their capstone projects. I have just completed supervising four students in 2021, five others in 2022, and five others in 2023. I just finished supervising seven M.Ed. students in 2024 with one additional student still in progress. 

At SFU, I have helped supervise 29 Ph.D. candidates in Education, as well as many Master of Education students. 

ECC 510, ECC 512, EGC 640