Embodied Pedagogies, Physical Activity and Creativity in School-Aged Children: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Faced with the complex challenges of the 21st century—environmental, digital, health-related, and geopolitical—international institutions emphasize the need to educate citizens capable of proposing new and appropriate solutions. From this perspective, creativity—understood as the ability to generate ideas that are both original and relevant—emerges as a fundamental competence to be developed at school. This article examines the role that educational practices integrating physical activity and embodied cognition can play in developing this skill among children and adolescents aged 3 to 18 in a school setting. A PRISMA-compliant systematic review was conducted using the MEDLINE, PsycInfo, and ScienceDirect databases, and 12 studies were selected based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results reveal positive effects on creativity, particularly motor creativity, but also highlight significant heterogeneity in the protocols and measures used, as well as open questions regarding the cognitive mechanisms involved. These findings suggest a need to rethink educational practices by further integrating the body and movement to support the full development of students’ potential.