ABSTRACT
Once music-making and music-taking is abstracted from everyday cultural life and becomes institutionalized in schools and colleges, questions have to be faced not only as to what music is included or excluded but how teaching and learning is to be managed. Through the processes of curriculum selection and the organization of learning, institutions become notorious makers and guardians of boundaries. They maintain their own subcultures by means of rules, social order, age and sometimes gender specification and, most powerfully of all, through the ways in which knowledge is structured. What counts as knowledge is defined by schools, colleges and examination systems. Outside of these institutions, different cultural groups maintain their own codes and belief systems, defining what is thought to be worthwhile or ‘good’, marking out territory and boundaries. Music is often brought into service for these purposes. Within institutions, what is worth knowing is similarly classified and framed.
