ISE Featured in Peer-Reviewed Journal

We’re thrilled to share that Inner Strength Education’s work has been published in the Journal of Contemporary School Psychology. The article, “Cultivating Adolescents’ Self-Compassion Through Mindfulness: The Role of Self-Regulation at Both the Individual- and Classroom-Level,” explores how mindfulness can help teens develop more self-compassion—and how that growth is influenced by both personal and classroom dynamics.

The study, led by long-time Inner Strength research collaborator Dr. Rachel Razza and her team, followed over 2,100 students from six Philadelphia high schools as they participated in the 12-week Inner Strength Teen Program. The findings offer meaningful insight: students with lower self-regulation skills showed the greatest gains in self-compassion, especially when they were in classrooms with peers who also had lower initial self-regulation.

Why does this matter?

It reinforces and gives validity to what we see in the classroom. Mindfulness can work for most everyone—and it can be especially powerful for those students who need it most. These findings interestingly also affirm that cultivating inner resources like compassion, resilience, and self-awareness isn’t just a personal journey—it’s also influenced by the learning environment around us.

We’re proud to see our work uplifted in academic research, and we’re deeply grateful for Dr. Razza’s ongoing collaboration and commitment to understanding how to best support adolescents’ mental and emotional well-being.

The full article is available through in the Journal of Contemporary School Psychology’s May Issue

Together, we continue building strong minds and compassionate hearts.