Successful curriculum development in any school subject requires a clear and established set of elements: agreed and widely appreciated goals; effective criteria for the selection of important knowledge content; and an explicit and well-integrated explanatory base for authentic problem-solving related to the subject goals. The article shows that the history discipline faces particular challenges in meeting these requirements. The diversity of approaches to history complicates the task of establishing consensus around a clear set of goals. Its association in popular discourse with facts and narrative predisposes history to a descriptive approach, and is not helpful in clarifying the foundational ideas on which historical explanation is based. The article considers each of these issues and the extent to which they are resolved in the development of the Australian history curriculum. It concludes that these issues remain a challenge that could put at risk high-quality curriculum outcomes in history.
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2011). The Australian curriculum: History. Sydney: Author.
2.
BishopJ. (2006a). Forgetting our past, failing our future: The teaching of Australian history. Minister Bishop's Address to The Australian History Summit Dinner 16 August 2006. Retrieved 20 March 2007 from http://www.dest.gov.au/Ministers/Media/Bishop/2006/08/b001170806.asp.
BonnellA. (2008). Australia's history under Howard, 1996–2007. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 617, 1, 149–165.
5.
BrawleyS. (1997). ‘A comfortable and relaxed past’: John Howard and the ‘Battle of History‘, Electronic Journal of Australian and New Zealand History. Retrieved 19 September 2011 from http://www.jcu.edu.au/aff/history/articles/brawley.htm
6.
ClarkA. (2006). Teaching the nation: Politics and pedagogy in Australian history. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
7.
ClarkA. (2008a). History's children: History wars in the classroom. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
8.
ClarkA. (2008b). The challenge of teaching Australian history. In ButcherJ. (Ed.), Australia under construction: Nation-building past, present and future. Canberra: ANU E-Press.
9.
CurthoysA.DockerJ. (2006). Is history fiction?Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
10.
Department of Education, Science and Training (Commonwealth). (2006, August). The Australian History Summit: Transcript of Proceedings. Canberra: Department of Education, Science and Training.
11.
EvansR.J. (2000). In defence of history. London: Granta.
12.
EvansR.W. (2004). The social studies wars: What should we teach our children?New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
13.
FosterS.J. (1998). Politics, parallels and perennial curriculum questions: The battle over school history in England and the United States. Curriculum Journal, 9(2), 153–164.
JonesR. (1970). Towards a new history syllabus. History, 55, p. 384–396.
18.
LeeP. (2005). Putting principles into practice: Understanding history. In DonovanM.S.BransfordJ.D. (Eds.), How students learn: History in the classroom. Committee on How People Learn, a targeted report for teachers. National Research Council, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
19.
LevesqueS. (2005). In search of a purpose for school history. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37(3), 349–358.
20.
LittleV. (1990). A national curriculum in history: A very contentious issue. British Journal of Educational Studies, 38(4), 319–334.
21.
LloydC. (1996). For realism and against the inadequacies of common sense: A response to Arthur Marwick. Journal of Contemporary History, 31(1), 191–207.
22.
MacintyreS.ClarkA. (2003). The history wars. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
National Curriculum Board. (2008a). The national history curriculum: Framing paper. Melbourne: National Curriculum Board.
25.
National Curriculum Board. (2008b). The shape of the national curriculum: A proposal for discussion. Melbourne: National Curriculum Board.
26.
National Curriculum Board. (2009). Shape of the Australian curriculum: History. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
27.
National Research Council. (2005). How students learn: History in the classroom. Committee on How People Learn, a targeted report for teachers, DonovanM.S.BransfordJ.D. (Eds.). Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
28.
NietzscheF. (1997) Untimely meditations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
29.
OsborneK. (2003). Teaching history in schools: A Canadian debate. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35(5), 585–626.
30.
RothsteinR. (2004). We are not ready to assess history performance. Journal of American History, 90(4), 1381–1391.
31.
RuddK.SmithS. (2007). New directions for our schools: Establishing a national curriculum to improve our children's educational outcomes. Canberra: Australian Labor Party.
32.
SeixasP. (2006). Benchmarks of historical thinking: A framework for assessment in Canada. Vancouver: Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness, University of British Columbia.
33.
SimpsonI.HalseC. (2006). Illusions of consensus: New South Wales stakeholders' constructions of the identity of history. Curriculum Journal, 17(4), 351–366.
SymcoxL. (2002). Whose history? The struggle for national standards in American classrooms. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
36.
TaylorT. (2006). Disputed territory: The politics of historical consciousness in Australia. In SeixasP. (Ed.), Theorizing historical consciousness. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
37.
TaylorT. (2009). Howard's end: A narrative memoir of political contrivance, neoconservative ideology and the Australian history curriculum. Curriculum Journal, 20(4), 317–329.
38.
TaylorT.GuyverR. (2011) History wars and the classroom: Global perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
39.
ThorntonS.BartonK. (2010). Can history stand alone? Drawbacks and blind spots of a ‘disciplinary’ curriculum. Teachers College Record, 112(9), 2471–2495.
40.
ToshJ. (2008). Why history matters. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
41.
TrevelyanG. (1944) English social history: A survey of six centuries Chaucer to Queen Victoria. London, UK: Longmans, Green.
