Abstract:

The introduction of specialist Physical Education (PE) teachers in Italian primary schools, as provided for in recent legislative reforms, represents an epistemological and cultural transformation of the school system. This shift calls for moving beyond fragmented models of educational planning in favour of a cooperative, dialogic, and interdisciplinary approach. In this perspective, co-design between specialist teachers and pedagogical teams takes on a central role in integrating the physical and relational expertise of PE into the curriculum, contributing to a holistic and complex vision of teaching. The contribution, developed from a theoretical-argumentative perspective, proposes a conceptual framework that distances itself from linear and instrumental rationality to embrace systemic, embodied, and socio-constructivist models.

The Theory of Autopoiesis (Maturana & Varela, 1980) interprets learning as a process of self-organization; Embodied Cognition and Enaction (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991) highlights the embodied nature of thought; socio-constructivist theories (Vygotsky, 1978; Bruner, 1996) focus on linguistic mediation, social interaction, and operational constructs such as the Zone of Proximal Development and scaffolding. These theoretical frameworks not only broaden our understanding of learning but also establish cooperation as an ontological and ethical principle of teaching practices. Cooperation is interpreted as a practice of mutual recognition and co-authorship (Noddings, 1992; Freire, 1970), an essential condition for the construction of shared meanings and the promotion of an inclusive and democratic school culture. In this light, co-design represents the preferred device for bridging the gap between epistemology and practice, taking shape—in the enactive perspective—as a situated process of co-generating knowledge, relationships, and practices. Far from being an organizational procedure, it manifests itself as an embodied and dynamic activity, in which participants produce and renegotiate knowledge through recursive cycles of reflection and action.

Keywords:

Co-design and Cooperative Teaching, Socio-constructivist Educational Frameworks.