What place for the body at school?
N°99, november 2025
Coordination : Séverine Parayre (Institut Catholique de Paris), Maroussia Raveaud (researcher and educator), and Yannick Tenne (Honorary Inspector General of Education)
Paris, November 2025 – What if learning wasn't just done with the head, but also with the body? This is the question posed by the latest issue of the Revue internationale d’éducation de Sèvres, which explores the links between bodies, cultures and schools in a dozen countries around the world.
When education also involves the body
What if learning wasn’t only about the mind, but also the body? The latest issue of the Revue internationale d’éducation de Sèvres explores this question, examining the links between bodies, cultures, and schools across a dozen countries worldwide.
Rethinking the role of the body in education
From Japan to Morocco, Germany to New Zealand, Iran to Canada, this issue reveals how children and teachers experience their bodies at school. Postures, gestures, emotions, clothing and interactions are often overlooked, yet they are essential components of learning.
The body as a tool for learning and connection
Traditionally sidelined in favour of the mind, the body is now returning to the centre of educational thinking. This issue underlines how it can serve as a powerful lever for learning, communication and social cohesion in schools.
Inspiring practices from around the world
Through testimonies, research and case studies, contributors share original educational practices—with surprises and food for thought. Topics include dance, sport, gender, cultural and religious traditions, highlighting a diversity of approaches shaped by geography, history, and society.
A resource for teacher training
Articles cover a wide range of contexts through ethnographies, action research, textbook analysis, and teacher training initiatives. They reveal both resistance and innovation when the body is embraced as an educational resource. Teachers are invited to reconsider their gestures, postures, and classroom practices. The accompanying annotated bibliography is a precious resource.
Towards an embodied, tactile and inclusive pedagogy
This dossier is aimed at teacher trainers, education leaders and researchers seeking to enrich their understanding of classroom dynamics beyond curricula and textbooks. By integrating the body as a lever for learning, inclusion and well-being, it offers a valuable resource for those shaping the future of education.
ISBN: 978-2-85420-642-5 – Price: €19 – Distributed by Hatier
To order this issue
Table of Contents
- Introduction: schools and cultures through the lens of the body
Séverine Parayre, Maroussia Raveaud, Yannick Tenne - Learning with bodies, movement, and creativity in disadvantaged primary schools in South Australia
Robyne Garrett - Educating through the body: Japanese schools from the Meiji era to the post-war period
Hiroshi Nakada - School textbooks and female bodies: the case of the “islamised” curriculum in Iran
Saeed Paivandi - The body and capoeira at school in Brazil
Karina Limonta Vieira - Between ‘black negro’ and ‘white negro’: the albino body in (post)colonial African schools
Simplice Ayangma Bonoho - The body at school: an innovative approach through co-teaching in Bulgaria
Darina Kostova - Exploring embodied pedagogy in initial teacher education: the case of India
Shabari Rao and Mythili Ramchand - The body as a cognitive tool to harness in French and German mathematics textbooks
Géraldine Suau, Florence Soriano-Gafiuk, Jean-Michel Perez - Learning embodied mathematics in Canada
Nathalie Sinclair and Antoine Lachance - Bodies under control at Quranic and modern schools in Morocco
Khalid Mouna - Re-examining children’s bodies in Japanese and New Zealand early childhood education
Rachael S. Burke and Atsushi Nanakida - Bibliographic References Marion Latour and Anna Polewka