Fostering creative well-being and social sustainability through improvisation in school music

This article examines how playful improvisation pedagogy can foster learner well-being and social sustainability in compulsory school music. Responding to increasing levels of social anxiety among young people and the uneven distribution of music’s well-being benefits, the article argues that music education requires pedagogical conditions that make creative participation safe and meaningful for all learners. Drawing on practice-based research and scholarship on creative well-being, a theory-informed framework is introduced to conceptualize well-being as emerging through everyday relational, embodied and imaginative engagements in the classroom. Three interconnected approaches – focused listening, play-full sounding and mirroring – are proposed to cultivate attunement, playfulness and reciprocity in shared music-making. Rather than emphasizing musical outcomes, these approaches position the teacher as a facilitator of relational conditions that reduce self-evaluation, strengthen agency and support belonging. The article demonstrates how playful improvisation can expand access to musical meaning and contribute to socially sustainable school communities.