Embodiment and self-narrative in future educators’ training: Preliminary findings from the Italian implementation of an Italy–Brazil project

Future educators’ training may benefit from learning designs that integrate bodily experience, narrative, and professional reflection. This article reports a pilot study on the first Italian implementation, conducted in Perugia, of the Italy–Brazil project Autobiographical narration and motricityin future educators’ training. A qualitatively driven convergent mixed methods design was adopted. The protocol included eight sessions based on playful motor activities, autobiographical writing, sharing, and pedagogical debriefing. Thirty-two students produced 223 diary entries; complete data from the pre-post questionnaire and the post-only final test were available for 28 participants. After Holm correction, increases emerged in self-perceptions concerning body schema, symbolic play, role interpretation, the educational value of fairy tales, and wonder. Reflexive Thematic Analysis identified four themes: auto-biographical resonance of bodily experience; exposure and trust within the group; movement as a resource for regulation and competence; sensory imagination and aesthetic openness. Integration highlighted selective convergences, complementarity, and divergences, outlining a plausible and situated formative trajectory.