In recent years the notion of Wellbeing is gaining more and more attention within Educational Sciences and it is now acquiring a special place within Health Education. However, in schools, both Health and Wellbeing Education have mostly addressed issues and activities for children and students and less for principals and teachers. 
In this paper we present a research project entitled “Embodied Wellbeing in Teacher Education” aiming at building a pedagogical framework for wellbeing promotion in Teacher Education. The project, funded by a foundation in the north east of Italy, wishes to explore the following research question: how to create an effective pedagogical model for pre service and in-service Teacher Education to promote teachers’ psycho-physical wellbeing.
The theoretical framework of this research is rooted into two main premises. First, connecting Educational Sciences, especially Phenomenological Pedagogy, with Embodied Theory (Francesconi 2009; Francesconi & Tarozzi 2012; Varela et al. 1991). This is a theoretical approach that is placed at the intersection of phenomenology on one side and neurocognitive science at the other and it deeply reconsiders the role that lived experience plays in the development and expression of cognition (from here the words “embodied” and “enacted”). Here we propose, on the basis of the phenomenological tradition (Merleau-Ponty 2002), to move toward an Embodied Education.
Secondly, we aim at connecting these aspects with a strictly pedagogical conception of wellbeing that we call Eudaimonia (Foucault et al 1988; Jaeger 2003). Eudaimonia, as main goal of educational practices, encompasses a shift from the medical treatment of social and psychological pathologies, towards a general raising of the individual and collective level of wellbeing.
In this presentation we will discuss especially 1) why embodied theory seems to be the best paradigm for a Wellbeing Education, with a specific focus on the role that the body and the bodily experience play in self-consciousness and wellbeing promotion (Francesconi & Tarozzi 2012), and 2) the empirical and practical educational aspects of an Embodied Wellbeing Education through the presentation of our research plan and some preliminary results: in particular, we will present the state of the art of Wellbeing Education in Italy and the subjective perception (folk epistemology) of Italian teachers about Wellbeing Education.

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