The need for redress in South African education includes calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum. In music education, this could imply a straight forward swap of content, replacing the 'hegemonic' Western classical canon with orally transmitted musical traditions in Africa. However, the picture clouds somewhat when the epistemological framework of the discipline of (Western) music is retained for the 'decolonised' curriculum, as this results in a disjuncture between the practice of African music and the way it is understood on a conceptual level in the curriculum. Drawing on the theories of Basil Bernstein and Karl Maton, this article probes the nature of the knowledge articulated in the South African secondary school, the basis of its specialisation, and its potential to equip students with knowledge that allows boundary crossing.

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