In recent years we have witnessed the growing importance of the so-called “Embodied Theory”, a theory emerged within cognitive science after the well-known book "The Embodied Mind. Cognitive Science and Human Experience" by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch. This new paradigm (Gallagher & Zahavi 2008; Thompson 2007; Varela et al. 1991) is strictly related to and derives from complex system theory, phenomenology and eastern tradition (both philosopical and practical), it has seen the birth of sub-areas like embedding, enaction and extended mind, and it reclaims the importance of the role of the body, of the body-mind connection and of the lived experience in issues like intentionality, perception, action, consciousness, social cognition. Since the field’s inception, Embodied Theory was a conglomerate of different disciplines, both hard sciences and social sciences and humanities, from neuroscience to philosophy, from cognitive science to anthropology, from psychology to artificial intelligence, but educational science was not considered a structural part of this emerging field and it didn't play any crucial role so far.

Looking at the future perspectives of education, I deeply think that educational science should accept this challenge and start a dialogue with the Embodied Theory to create a promising new field within educational theories (Francesconi 2009; 2010; Francesconi & Tarozzi 2012). In particular, I propose a discussion about reasons and modalities of this possible alliance from the point of view of Phenomenological Pedagogy, which seems to be ready to welcome and to take advantage from an augmented attention on the bodily dimension of cognition and human experience (Francesconi & Tarozzi 2012; Gallagher & Francesconi 2012).

Therefore, I present the following topics:

1) theoretical and paradigmatic questions about the convergence of Embodiment and Educational Science.

2) practical issues about the embodied mind in education, learning and teaching, e.g. meditation in educational contexts and the applicability of the pedagogical concept of Übung (Brinkmann 2012);

3) educational research methods to investigate the embodied mind and the bodily experience in education, learning and teaching, with a special focus on video analysis and phenomenological method.

Brinkmann M. (2012). Pädagogische Übung: Praxis und Theorie einer elementaren Lernform. Ferdinand2 Schöningh. Francesconi D. (2009). Embodied mind between education and cognitive sciences: Bodily consciousness and meditation training. International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, v. 4 (10), pp. 19-28. Francesconi D., (2010). The Embodied Mind: Mindfulness Meditation as Experiential Learning in Adult Education. Ph.D. thesis, University of Trento. Francesconi D., Tarozzi M. (2012). Embodied Education: A Convergence of Phenomenological Pedagogy and Embodiment, Studia Phaenomenologica, v. 12, pp. 263-288. Gallagher S., Francesconi D. (2012). Teaching Phenomenology to Qualitative Researchers, Cognitive Scientist, Phenomenologists, Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, v. XII, pp. 263-288. Gallagher S., Zahavi D. (2008). The Phenomenological Mind. An introduction to philosophy of mind and cognitive science, London: Routledge. Thompson E. (2007). Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Varela F. J., Thompson E., & Rosch E., (1991). The Embodied Mind. Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press: Cambridge (MA).