For decades, sociological theory has emphasized a shift toward fluidity and rapid transformation, highlighting the need for forms of thinking, learning, and relating that engage complexity rather than simplistic static essentialism (Bauman, 2011; Morin, 2000). The condition of liquid modernity described by Bauman (2000) situates contemporary education within a social landscape defined by instability, uncertainty, and the erosion of stable reference points. A condition intensified by social acceleration, which compresses time, privileges immediacy, and undermines reflection and sustained engagement (Rosa, 2013). Yet, despite this long-acquired awareness, formal education has changed little: curricula remain standardized (Aoki, 1993, 2005; Apple, 1979; Pinar, 2011; Macintyre Latta, 2013; Osberg & Biesta, 2008), often rigid and impermeable to contextual shifts or emergent conditions, knowledge fragmented (Morin, 2000), relationships hierarchical (Foucault, 1995; Freire, 1970, 1994; hooks, 1994, 2003; McLaren, 2009), and assessment oriented toward control and measurable outcomes. Rather than embracing uncertainty as a constitutive condition of learning, educational systems tend to deny it.

This enduring misalignment between contemporary social conditions and educational practices opens a conceptual fracture. Instead of attempting to resolve this tension by restoring stability or refining existing models, this study proposes to inhabit it, engaging uncertainty as a generative condition for teaching, learning, agency, and communitarian meaning-making. Improvisation is what allows to linger in this fracture. Improvisation is not confined to artistic practice but is understood as a form of knowledge, a relational mode of action, and a political practice that unfolds in real time (Lewis & Piekut, 2016). It involves risk-taking, deep listening, and a willingness to be affected and transformed through interaction (Caines & Heble, 2015). As such, it carries a clear educational and political potential. Contrary to the entrenched tendency of education to prepare students for a “predictable and orderly future,” improvisation in teaching and learning is not occasional but structural, embedded in the very dynamics of engaging with a fast-moving and uncertain present. Knowledge itself grows along a path that is never linear nor entirely foreseeable, but marked by detours, trials, and mistakes (Dewey, 1934). As Ingold (2010) emphasizes, learning does not consist of following fixed instructions but of engaging with others, observing, experimenting, and participating in shared practice, with a capacity to bend and re-invent. 

Building on this perspective, the study frames improvisation through the metaphor of Education as Jazz (Santi & Zorzi, 2016). Here, jazz is not considered as a musical genre, but as an educational lens that highlights learning as a creative, relational, and deeply formative process, where improvisation guides engagement, exaptation (Gould & Vrba, 1982), and co-construction of knowledge. 

While the role of improvisation in education has already been widely explored across general educational contexts (Aoki, 1993; Cappa & Negro, 2006; Gershon, 2006, 2017; Holdhus et al., 2016; Sorensen, 2022; Santi, 2010; Tomlinson & Germundson, 2007; Zorzi, 2020), this study extends existing studies by approaching improvisation through the lived experiences of jazz musicians and improvisers. Their practices are not treated as models to be transferred, but as situated forms of knowledge capable of illuminating alternative ways of thinking about teaching, learning, and curriculum. Within this framework, the research is guided by the following questions: (RQ1) Are there defining elements of a jazz approach in education, and if so, what are they according to jazz musicians and improvisers? (RQ2) How, and in what ways, can a jazz-inspired educational approach contribute to the development of a curricular framework?

Given the study’s focus on meaning-making and lived experience, a qualitative approach using Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) (Charmaz, 2014, 2017) was adopted, recognizing the co-construction of meaning between researcher and participants and the influence of broader sociocultural contexts. In line with Strauss and Corbin (2015), the study acknowledges that researchers cannot fully detach themselves from prior knowledge and experience; rather than treating subjectivity as a limitation, it was engaged reflexively as an analytic resource to enhance theoretical sensitivity. This positioning supports theory development grounded in participants’ lived experiences and facilitates coherent methodological decisions (Tracy, 2010). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews (N=40) with three groups: jazz musicians/improvisers with teaching experience, organizational affiliates from Italian jazz institutions, and improvisation scholars. These groups were selected to reflect the three interrelated dimensions of the Index for Inclusion—practices, policies, and cultures (Booth & Ainscow, 2002)—used as a flexible organizing tool rather than a rigid framework. The Index was chosen for its cyclical structure (reviewing, planning, and acting), which parallels the collaborative dynamics of jazz improvisation and supports collective meaning-making. Interview questions and analytic focus were iteratively refined as themes emerged, with a core set ensuring comparability while allowing flexibility to adapt to each interaction (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009) until theoretical saturation was reached. All interviews were audio-recorded, manually transcribed, and analyzed using ATLAS.ti (v. 25.0.1). Although no predefined coding categories were established, three main thematic groups emerged retrospectively. 1) Experiences and Cultural Perceptions: codes related to participants’ professional trajectories, educational practices, and cultural understandings of jazz, including locally situated perspectives. 2) Jazz Components: codes addressing core elements of jazz and the first research question, distinguishing between components elicited through prompts and those emerging spontaneously. 3) In vivo codes: to preserve participants’ original language and were left ungrouped to foreground participants’ own conceptualizations. Only the Jazz Components codes were further organized into code groups based on key traits from the “education as jazz” framework (see Santi, 2015). Improvisation was treated as a transversal code, reflecting its pervasive relevance across all traits and underscoring its foundational role in both jazz and jazz-informed pedagogy. Overall, the coding strategy supported both theoretical grounding and the refinement of existing frameworks, contributing to a dynamic understanding of how jazz and improvisational practices can inform contemporary educational approaches.

The analysis revealed a set of recurring themes that emerged as core components of a jazz-informed approach to education: improvisation, freedom, inclusion, mistakes, listening, and community. These elements both confirm and enrich the initial theoretical framework, functioning as interrelated coordinates, simultaneously navigable, within what I conceptualize as a curricular compass. The curricular compass replaces the idea of a fixed, transferable framework with an orienting device that guides rather than prescribes, allowing the curriculum to be continually re-routed in relation to context, students, and emerging challenges. The compass embodies a fluid and processual orientation, opening a horizon of possibilities in which educational pathways are explored and reshaped in motion. By foregrounding process and contingency, unexpected turns and interruptions are treated as constitutive of inquiry, with mistakes framed as generative moments that open space for discovery, transformation, and the recombination of diverse ways of knowing and being. This approach embraces dis-orientation, reframing moments of “getting lost” as productive conditions that invite collective exploration of uncertainty, support reflective engagement, foster resilience, and cultivate shared spaces in which multiple possibilities can be pursued creatively and without fear or isolation (Barreneche & Santi, 2022; Barreneche et al., 2023; Santi et al., 2025). In this sense, a curriculum conceived as a jazz standard, guided by a curricular compass, is not a fixed body of content but a flexible framework that allows teachers to act within a Spielraum (Stegmaier, 2019), improvising respons-ively/ibly. The compass paves the way for educators to move away from the curriculum-as-planned towards a curriculum-as-lived (Aoki, 1993), wherein concepts are approached as living ideas, recognizable yet transformable across contexts and disciplines. Thus, the compass allows teachers and students to coalesce disciplinary understanding with personal experience, cultivating autonomy, flexibility, and exploratory capacities.

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