‘Learning from history is something that is important for the future’: Why Australian students think history matters

Abstract

Research suggests young people generally do not perceive History to be a subject that is relevant to their lives and futures. Across the world, history curriculum policy regularly attracts public debate but, as it is usually dominated by political rhetoric, the students who experience it remain overlooked as policy actors with valuable perspectives. This article foregrounds the voices of Australian secondary school students by drawing on a national online survey that asked students about the relevance of History and the reasons for choosing it as a subject in the post-compulsory years. Concerned about lagging national enrolments in post-compulsory History subjects, we argue that student perspectives provide essential insights into understanding issues related to the status and sustainability of history education. Our thematic analysis demonstrates that students position the present and the future as key touchstones to measure the relevance of History. It explores how these themes relate to prevailing discursive conditions: popular discourse around the purpose of history, young people’s sense of temporality and hope during volatile times, and the futures discourse that frames the Australian curriculum policy context. The research provides impetus for innovating history curriculum policy and education policy more broadly in ways that are responsive to students.

Introduction

Reflecting on the need to revise the Australian Curriculum in 2021, Australia’s then Education Minister, Alan Tudge, said: ‘Ultimately, students should leave school with a love of country and a sense of optimism and hope that we live in the greatest country on Earth and that the future is bright’ (2021: para. 61). Taking issue with the History curriculum specifically, Tudge (2021) argued that it should promote a more positive narrative of Australian history to ensure that students feel patriotic, and buoyant about the future. As this paper explores, the senior secondary students we surveyed about the relevance of school History also have strong views about the connection between history and the future. However, students’ motivations for learning about and from the past differ to those expressed by politicians, and their perspectives offer valuable insights into possible future directions for the transformation of History curriculum.

The instinct to reflect on the relationship between the temporal dimensions of past, present and future is common to all societies, and the ways that we understand this relationship shape our individual and collective historical consciousness (Greever and Adriaansen, 2019). The capacity of history to help us make sense of these dimensions has been philosophised for centuries. As an internet search reveals, lists of quotable quotes about the purpose of history – which are often made by long dead, white European men, for example, Age of the Sage (n.d.) – foreground history’s potential as a reflective tool. More recent commentary from historians (e.g. Holbrook et al., 2022) and scholarship on historical consciousness and history education (e.g. Ammert et al., 2022; Clark and Grever, 2018; Clark and Peck, 2019; Popa, 2022) considers the efficacy of applying conceptions of the triadic past–present–future nexus in contemporary contexts. In Australia, the rationales of official History curricula also purport to represent a discipline that has contemporary relevance and equips students to ‘take an informed position on how the past informs the present and future’ (VCAA, 2020: 2).

Yet we know very little about whether students value History as a subject that will help them to develop more perspicacious understandings of their present and future worlds, or the extent to which they believe History to be a subject relevant to their own lives. While there is a small body of research that suggests young people see History as lacking relevance, most of this is based on studies based in Europe (e.g. Harris and Reynolds, 2014; Haydn and Harris, 2010; Miguel-Rivella, 2022; Van Straaten et al., 2016) and North America (e.g. Berg, 2019; Cutara, 2019). Very few Australian studies have centred on student perceptions of History as a school subject, the most prominent being Clark’s (2008) History’s Children, which focused on students in years 7–10 and their less than enthusiastic attitudes towards Australian history. Internationally, there is a recognised lack of research that is inclusive of student voice in relation to curriculum policy reform (Flynn and Hayes, 2021). Therefore, engaging students as curriculum policy actors is long overdue. We agree that ‘a comprehensive understanding of the way history is currently conceived can provide valuable information on how to shape history education for the future’ (Miguel-Revilla, 2022: 71). This is essential if we are to understand trends in enrolment data and possible future trajectories of specific subject areas.

Concerned that enrolments in History subjects in the post-compulsory years (Years 11 and 12) Australia-wide are either stagnating or declining, despite the student cohort expanding overall (see Cairns and Garrard 2020), we conducted a national online survey to gauge student attitudes and curricular experiences. This article focuses on one aspect of that survey: questions regarding the relevance of school history to young people’s lives. Considering that existing research suggests that students ‘generally have difficulty seeing the value of school history’ (Popa, 2022: 171) and ‘do not usually perceive history as a subject connected with their lives, backgrounds and interests’ (Miguel-Revilla, 2022: 71), we were somewhat surprised that our analysis shows most participants believe that History is a relevant subject. The students’ reasoning indicates the present and future matter to the way they value History and provides important insights for understanding the status and sustainability of history education.

The following sections provide further context, positioning the project in relation to the research literature and the Australian history curriculum policy landscape. Details of the mixed-methods national survey and our approach are provided, followed by a discussion of key themes generated by reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2022). Lastly, we explore how the themes relate to prevailing discursive conditions, including popular discourse around the purpose of History, young people’s sense of temporality and hope during volatile times, and the futures discourse that frames curriculum policy. These insights have implications for future History curriculum policy planning in Australia and elsewhere and contribute much-needed student perspectives to curricular conversations that are often contested and politicised (see Cairns, 2022).

Making history relevant to the future

The notion that the goals and content of History curriculum should be relevant to the interests and futures of the students who experience it is not a new one, as the following comments from historical curriculum policy actors illustrate. A 1934 report issued by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) spoke of a ‘revolution’ in the method of teaching history: ‘more and more the pupil’s interest and the pupil’s activity are being considered’ (Hoy, 1934: 7). In the late 1960s, the Chief Research Officer for ACER advocated for more relevant content that shifted the emphasis from ‘far off places and battles long ago’ to the ‘recent past and on the pupil’s immediate environment’ (Bennet, 1968: 14).

More recently, an article in a 1980 edition of the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria’s journal, written by a member of the Curriculum and Research Branch at the Victorian Department of Education, asked how history could better meet the needs of students in a changing world: ‘What are the needs of students? How can historical study meet these needs?’ (Bell, 1980: 10). Bell advocated ‘for new structures in curriculum through which students will be better equipped to face the challenge of the future’ (1980: 17).

By the time the new Australian Curriculum: History was being framed in 2008, a future’s orientation was central to its design, as highlighted by one of its aims: ‘The fundamental objective of school history is to provide students with knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the past in order to appreciate their and other’s culture, to understand better the present and to contribute to debate about planning for the future’ (National Curriculum Board, 2008: 2). We expand upon the ongoing effects of this futures discourse in our analysis below.

However, the future-focused aspirations of history curriculum assume that school History has the inherent capacity to provide students with historical knowledge that can be transferred to present and future contexts. This points to a common inconsistency in History curriculum documents, which often presume to do this, yet fail to include learning goals that explicitly address the relationship between past, present and future – and instead focus on the past as an aim in itself (Carretero, 2018; Van Straaten et al., 2016; 2018b). A Dutch team has made a significant contribution to this problematisation by conceptualising relevant history teaching, developing strategies to help teachers and students connect past, present and future, and formulating the Relevance of History Measurement Scale (RHMS) (Van Straaten et al., 2016; 2018a; 2018b). Relevant history is defined as ‘allowing students to recognize and experience what history has to do with themselves, with today’s society and their general understanding of human existence’ (Wilschut et al., 2013, c.f. Van Straaten et al., 2018b). The RHMS is framed by three objectives for relevant history teaching: developing a personal identity, becoming a citizen and understanding the human condition. Miguel-Revilla’s (2022) study of secondary and tertiary education students further demonstrates the usefulness of RHMS as a model and questionnaire. Although we have not adopted the RHMS for our student survey, this literature has informed our approach.

The focus on relevance builds on an expanding body of research on historical consciousness in history education (e.g. Clark and Grever, 2018; Clark and Peck, 2019; Popa, 2022). Drawing on others’ conceptualisations, Popa (2022) succinctly defines historical consciousness ‘as a process by which people understand the links between past, present, and future to position themselves in time’ (2022: 172). As well as giving students the tools for exercising historical consciousness, Ammert et al. (2022) argue that they ‘need competencies for comprehending, discussing, and evaluating moral dilemmas’ (2022: 4) to reflect on the moral implications of history. This is arguably an important competency, especially considering the widespread commitment to teaching difficult histories (see Epstein and Peck, 2017). Ammert et al. (2022) offer a compelling rationale for intersecting historical consciousness and moral consciousness in ways that promote democracy and enrich the ethical dimensions of history teaching. However, other scholars do not apply historical consciousness when orienting history education towards the future (e.g. Carretero, 2018; Den Heyer, 2017; Maxwell, 2018). According to Maxwell (2018), ‘a conflict at the heart of history education prevents it from functioning effectively: History is about the past, but education is about the future’ (2018: 1). As we will see, this dualism is not as pronounced in the Australian context.

Another concern relates to History’s disciplinary knowledge structures and their efficacy for responding to twenty-first-century challenges. For example, consider the 2021 provocation by McGregor and colleagues: ‘Is history education still relevant in the Anthropocene? Is it well justified by our global needs?’ (2021: 484). This provocation is grounded in the belief that history educators and curriculum policy makers need to be more responsive to the precarious times and uncertain futures that students will experience. Thus, McGregor et al. prompt: ‘What approaches to learning will best serve students in finding meaningful connections between the past, present, and future while responding to the threats of climate change?’ (McGregor et al., 2021). Indeed, the same sort of question could be posed regarding (anti)racism and decolonising history. The research presented herein continues these crucial conversations across the literature and enables student voices to contribute to this dialogue.

National student survey

This paper stems from a broader research project entitled A National History Health Check, conducted by the authors. To date, the study has seen two phases:

• Phase 1: A National Senior Secondary History Health Check.

• Phase 2: Investigating Why Students Do or Do Not Choose History in the Senior Years.

Phase 1 responded to intuitive concerns regarding the status of senior secondary History, gleaned from anecdotal evidence, teacher commentary and relevant literature. We collected data from national curriculum bodies to verify enrolments in senior secondary history subjects over a 12-year period, starting in 2010. Consistent with national and international discourses around History as a subject in crisis, the data from Phase 1 clearly showed that enrolments in History subjects at Years 11 and 12 in Australia have been declining – or, at best, flatlining – for some time (see Cairns and Garrard, 2020). From here, we initiated Phase 2 of the study to ask: What are the key causes for languishing enrolments in senior History at a national level? As highlighted earlier, there has been limited investigation of this research problem from the students’ perspectives. This paper addresses the shortfall by drawing on data generated by a national survey into students’ views on the relevance of history, and what influences students to choose or not choose History in their final years of schooling. It aims to contribute further to this scholarship by engaging with the reasons young people value history in their lives and their education.

At the time of the study, the pandemic was still limiting access to students in schools across Australia. To address this challenge, we moved away from traditional school-based recruitment methods and recruited participants via social media (SM). This meant we could access students directly, and importantly, this student-centred approach offered a more inclusive method of engaging students as curriculum actors on their own terms. Recruitment via SM is becoming increasingly popular. However, as Hokke et al. (2019) point out, a lack of ‘empirical literature investigating the ethics of engaging participants via social media’ (2019: 12) is a problem – particularly regarding the recruitment of young people (Gu et al., 2016; Mackenzie et al., 2021). While the recruitment of adolescents via SM has been utilised for some time in health research (see Amon et al., 2014), it remains underutilised in education. However, a recent study by Mackenzie et al. (2021) demonstrated how using Facebook and Instagram to recruit middle-school participants is advantageous to educational researchers and school communities as it increases accessibility to student participants and causes minimal disruption to school activities. Based on our experience, we agree that there are significant advantages to this method, including the opportunity SM provides to tap into an unfettered student voice away from the formalities of the regulatory classroom environment and, with ethical considerations in place, this method ensures that adolescents make their own choice about participating (Mackenzie et al., 2021).

Following ethical approval, we advertised the invitation for students to participate through a purposefully designed Instagram page, which was also promoted on Twitter and via snowballing through history education networks. A ‘two-question process’ (Mackenzie, 2021: 226) ensured anonymity and consent, as participants had to read the Plain Language Statement and give consent before commencing the survey. The participants – 290 in total – were required to answer eight initial demographic questions – for example, year level, gender, school type and History subjects offered at the senior secondary level. Participants were then asked if they planned to do History as a subject in Years 11 and 12. Depending on their response, students were channeled into a Yes Group – 42% of participants – and a No Group – 58% of participants. The balance between participants continuing and discontinuing the study of History helped to address potential issues of bias, and meant responses were not dominated by participants positively or negatively disposed to studying History. As we show below, the separation of the groups highlighted some similarities and distinct differences in how participants perceive the relevance of the subject of History and how it relates to their lives.

The mixed-method design of the survey allowed for a combination of quantitative closed questions and open qualitative questions. These questions were informed by the small body of literature on student attitudes to history outlined earlier, literature on the purpose of History according to historians and history educators, national History curriculum documents and the Value of History (Australian History Councils, 2019) statement adopted by the History Councils of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia. We acknowledge that all survey methods have limitations, and this is a relatively small sample (n = 290) for a national survey. However, our methods do not seek to produce generalisable conclusions, rather this data analysis uses reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) (Braun and Clarke, 2019; 2022) to provide an interpretation of a cross-section of student perspectives from across Australia.

Data analysis

This article reports on one key question in the survey: Would you describe History as a subject that is relevant to young people today? The quantitative part of the question provided the options: yes, no and not sure. The qualitative part of the question was one of the few open-ended questions and asked: Why do you think this? Here, we use reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) (Braun and Clarke, 2019; 2022) to analyse response and NVIVO 12 to systematically organise the data. This enabled us to become familiar with the whole body of data and to generate initial themes and concepts. Following this process, we coded the data to generate key themes (Braun and Clarke, 2019; 2022). Throughout the process we kept our positionality apparent, understanding that RTA is flexible, aims to produce multidimensional themes and can be used inductively and deductively (Braun and Clarke, 2022). Subsequently, we then came together to re-code data where necessary, systematically differentiating between labels, evidentiary quotes and interpretations to ‘conceptualise patterns of shared meaning underpinned or united by a core concept’ (Braun and Clarke, 2019: 593). For example, the core concept of ‘relevance’ was deductively traced early as a pattern across the data. The RTA process enabled ‘relevance’ to inductively evolve, based on the research literature, a nuanced understanding of History curriculum, and shared meanings and attributes of what makes for ‘relevance’ shared by the participants.

In the next section, we outline two key themes that we ‘generated’ (Braun and Clarke, 2019) from the qualitative data relating to the key question. Future publications will provide more comprehensive analysis of the other elements of the survey and other themes generated from the data.

Future-focused students

The No Group – the students who indicated they do not plan to continue with History – might be described as future-focused students. When evaluating the relevance of History, they predominantly orient themselves and their peers in relation to the future. The future utility of History was an important factor for measuring both the relevance and irrelevance of History as a subject.

Within the No Group, 46% of participants thought History was a subject that was relevant to the lives of young people – meaning that nearly half of the participants who had chosen not to continue with History still felt positively disposed towards it. Possibly some students had experiences during Years 7–10 that enabled them to make connections between the topics they were studying and their own interests and life worlds or felt that the skills they were developing were useful. Perhaps the topics they engaged with in their most recent studies in Year 10 were relatable, as they had most probably studied Australia and the Modern World (1918 to the present) as per Version 8.4 of the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2023), which would make it easier to draw connections to contemporary world issues. A quarter of the No Group (25%) selected the unsure response, possibly signaling that some students could be receptive to being convinced of its relevance, or that the value of history is ambiguous. The remaining 29% said History was not relevant – although when we examined the comments of these participants, it was evident that the future was still an important consideration.

Although we generated several themes from the No Group’s comments, they were dominated by one theme: learn from history to inform the future. This theme indicates there was a strong sense that History is relevant because it can shape or inform what could happen in the future and prevent us from repeating the mistakes of the past. For one student, historical understanding has the potential to make future improvements: ‘History is important for all people, young or old, in order to understand the past to better shape the future’. Another says, ‘Learning from history is something that is important for the future’. This participant elaborates: ‘The past informs the future. Most people are similar, so the way they acted in the past is a good predictor of how they’ll act in the future’. Other students focused more on the precautionary nature of History: ‘People need to know the past to not repeat the same mistakes’. Quite a few refer to generational progress: ‘I think that history can teach our younger generations about the mistakes of prior generations and the impacts that they have had’. Another student offers this thoughtful response:

Because young people today should be aware of the mistakes and victories of the past to form a better future. We must learn from our mistakes and celebrate the individuals who brought positive change. We discover role models from history and aspire to create a better society in the future.

For this young person, History has both positive and negative lessons to learn. To a significant extent, the No Group adopts the view of historia magistra vitae, the 2000-year-old Latin phrase used by Cicero to personify history as ‘life’s teacher’, or a set of examples (Koselleck, 2018). This theme also evokes George Santayana’s aphorism: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’ (Santayana 1905–1906). Familiarity with this quotable quote is encapsulated by the student who says: ‘Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it’.

From the comments of the 29% of No Group students who thought History was not relevant, the key theme was: young people are more interested in the present and future. The past is of little interest to these students ‘because teenagers are more absorbed by the present than the past’ and they ‘have a higher interest in the future’. One student points out that History must compete with other entertainments: ‘Most of the history is set in the 1900s, most students just wanna vape and play Fortnite’. Another suggested, ‘We should focus on having a better future without dwelling on the past’. For these students, History also lacked vocational relevance to their futures ‘because most current well-paying jobs don’t require history to be learned’. This quote indicates that not all students are convinced by the claim of historia magistra vitae: ‘Some history topics are beneficial to us individuals today, but other things are just very boring and don’t seem like something that will change or improve people’s future or how they live’. Other students also commented on history being boring or students not really caring about it. However, this sentiment was not particularly prevalent in the comments related to the key question.

Know the past to understand the present

The Yes Group – the history lovers – might be described as students who want to know the past to understand the present. When evaluating the relevance of the subject of History, 82% of this cohort said History is relevant. However, in comparison to the No Group, who saw this relevance as pertaining mostly to the future, this group orients the past in relation to the present. For the Yes Group, history matters because it provides the understanding to make sense of the way the world works, particularly in the present day and, to a lesser extent, will help in the future. Knowing the past to understand the present and future was a prominent theme in both groups. However, for the Yes Group, history held a stronger connection to the present. As one student says, ‘so many of the issues we are seeing in the world today, we have seen in the past’. Another illustrates this sentiment with a contemporary example: ‘So much of the issues we are seeing in the present mirror the issues we have seen in the past, e.g. Russia invading Ukraine, much like Germany attempting to invade other countries’. This group overwhelmingly describes History as a subject relevant to young people today, possibly because of their love of history itself. This intrinsic value underpins their positive disposition to the subject of History, undeterred by the consideration of strategies related to further study or future employment.

The dominant theme of know the past to understand the present is consistently demonstrated by the Yes Group in comments such as, ‘History affects our everyday lives’ and ‘it shows students things that still impact society today, which gives us a greater understanding of how the world works’. Students in this group see the subject of History as a way to fix the challenges of contemporary society. For example:

History opens the eyes of young adults to issues that have happened, especially in recent years. By understanding the past, as a society we are able to use what we have learned to improve the future.

The Yes Group is vocal about a perceived lack of interest in history by other students, which they attribute to an unwillingness of their peers to choose History as a subject. One student suggests social media as a cause of the subject’s growing irrelevance, saying, ‘losing history is becoming more prevalent as social media is taking it away so it needs to become relevant’. Others speak of ‘the importance of History to influence and form opinions about current historic events’ and giving adults ‘the capacity to make better decisions’ as a way of explaining its relevance. For this group, the relevance of History is about the lessons that can be learned now and, unlike the No Group, they are less likely to refer to history as something that repeats. Overall, both groups share a genuine desire for the betterment of the world, which is indicative of a sense of hopefulness.

Contextualising the analysis

Consistent with the final step of Braun and Clarke’s (2022) RTA method, we now contextualise these interpretative stories in relation to the literature and the discursive conditions that shape the dominant curricular and Western historical traditions in settler-colonial Australia. Taken together, the two themes – learn from history to inform the future and know the past to know the present – point to participants largely perceiving the relevance of school History in terms of learning lessons from history. This is distinct from learning lessons about history and underscores the desire of young people to learn about the past for the purpose of utilising historical knowledge and skills throughout their lives. The sentiment is captured by this student: ‘It is important that we learn the lessons of history, not the history itself’. This is not to suggest that there were no students who commented on the intrinsic value of doing History; some indicated that they were deeply curious about the past for the past’s sake. A couple also reflected that it is impossible to learn from the mistakes of the past. Nonetheless, we would suggest there are some key reasons why, in 2022, a cross-section of Australian students accord history’s relevance with what it can teach us.

The first key reason is that the notion of learning lessons from history is a perennial one. Over time, aphoristic sentiments about history repeating and its didactic potential have become clichés of Western historical and public discourse: ‘Whenever the importance of history is discussed, epigrams and homilies come tripping easily off our tongues’ (Fry, 2006: para 1). Similar themes were identified in a British study, which surveyed students in Years 7–9 and found significant percentages of participants valued History ‘to help understand the present’ and ‘to avoid making the same mistakes’ (Haydyn and Harris, 2010: 248). This commonality between studies might be traced to a ‘common conception both in and out of the school’ (Carretero, 2018: 267) that ‘traditional formal and informal history education are supposed to consist of the teaching of the past and its relation to the present’ (Carretero, 2018: 267).

Although we cannot delve into historical theory in detail, such notions reflect an attachment to the idea of historical progress, which assumes cumulative advance by human societies (Rotenstreich, 1971). Further, an aphorism like Santayana’s (see above) is problematic, as it ‘rests on the assumption that yesterday’s mistakes are recognisable’ (Holbrook et al., 2022: 13). The German philosopher Hegel (1832) highlights the futility of this in the often-misquoted, ‘What experience and history teach is this–that people and governments never have learned anything from history or acted on principles deduced from it’ (Wikiquote, 2022). The historians Holbrook et al. (2022), authors of Lessons from History, do not advocate for ‘crude historical “lessons” or rigid templates that might be imposed on contemporary problems’ (2022: 2), but instead contemplate ‘history’s capacity to enlarge and contextualise public debate’ (2022: 2). Australian historian Frank Bongiorno (2022) warns of the danger of history being simplified and misused by politicians, policy makers and the media if they do not draw on ‘nuanced historical lessons informed by a sense of context’ (2022, para. 22), which he says can be developed through historical literacy at school. The fact that the Yes Group were more likely to comment on how historical understanding provides insight into the present in comparison to the more future-focused No Group (who were discontinuing History), suggests that the study of History at the senior level might see students developing a more nuanced understanding of how history provides context for the contemporary world.

One’s temporal vantage point can influence one’s perceptions of the relevance of history. It is human instinct to position ourselves in the continuum of time, since it is ‘not possible to isolate the present from the past’ (Ammert et al., 2022). As Holbrook et al. (2022) suggest, the need for ‘seeing the world with the present’ (2022: 1) becomes more urgent in today’s volatile world. Owing to the effects of COVID-related disruptions to schooling, the climate crisis and immediate global conflicts – among other issues and injustices – adolescents are cognisant that they are inheriting a damaged, volatile world. Across the survey, numerous references were made to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how history provides a lens for making sense of this current event. The survey responses underscore the adolescent nature of the participants; to borrow a phrase from Brennan (2022: 86) ‘they are living their present towards future’.

The second key reason these young people are unlikely to value the past intrinsically relates to their own sense of temporality. We might read their optimism about learning from the mistakes of the past as youthful hope or naivety, but Mayes and Holdsworth’s (2020) work on student activism challenges educators to take young people’s collective ‘fervent feelings’ more seriously and consider how they might shape ‘a curriculum of critical hope’ (2020: 101). In their conceptualisation of critical hope as an ‘action-oriented response to contemporary despair’, Bozalek et al. (2014: 1) note that one of its features includes ‘re-evaluation of the present through historical scrutiny’ (2014: 2).

As pointed out earlier, more explicit curricular and pedagogical bridges will need to be built between past–present–future if History educators are to facilitate this sort of re-evaluation. We know teachers are endeavoring to help their students make these connections. In interviews conducted in a previous study by one of the authors, senior secondary History teachers in the state of Victoria indicated that they try to articulate to their students the relevance of the topics being studied to the present day (see Cairns, 2020). However, the scope to meaningfully extend learning up to the present is near impossible while meeting the content-heavy expectations of senior secondary history curricula. Maxwell (2018) identifies this as an issue in the US too: ‘future-focused history education could liberate teachers from the tyranny of content coverage, allowing teachers and students alike to concentrate on deep learning of important historical knowledge that truly matters in people’s lives’ (Maxwell, 2018: 168). A similar tension is noted by Van Stratten et al. (2018a), who highlight the discrepancy between the assumptions that history curriculum policy developers make about the implicit goals of history education and the actual requirements explicitly stated in official curricula. Indeed, recommendations for the development of future history curriculum will need to take this tension or gap into account.

The final contextual factor we would like to spotlight is the presence of a futures discourse in the Australian curriculum landscape. The inclination of students to measure a subject’s relevance in terms of its utility in their ‘present towards their future lives’ (Brennan, 2022: 86) sounds like common sense but is also a discursive effect of what Kenway (2008: 10) describes as curriculum futurology: the obsession curricula and education systems have with making ‘proclamations about the ways the future will be and how schools must prepare students for it’. As a response to globalisation and neoliberalism’s hold over education policy and practices globally, futureproofing curriculum valorises instrumentalist purposes of education. Over the last two decades, this discourse has reflected assumptions about the need to build human capital in the form of future workers who can compete in the knowledge economy and citizens who can engage locally, nationally and globally. From 2010 to 2023, this sentiment has been implicit in the aim of the Australian Curriculum: History F–10:

The Australian Curriculum: History aims to ensure that students develop: interest in, and enjoyment of, historical study for lifelong learning and work, including their capacity and willingness to be informed and active citizens (2023, V8.4: para. 2).

On the one hand, students’ inclination to measure the relevance of history in relation to its value to their futures may reflect the discursive messages they receive about the need to ensure their learning is transferable into their lives beyond school. On the other hand, the students’ interest in the social value of History for helping them navigate present and future challenges might also show that the future imagined by the Australian Curriculum over the last decade requires reimagining owing to ‘the shifting conditions under which education now takes place’ (Rizvi et al., 2022). As new challenges and ‘contemporary conditions have intensified demands for cooperation and collaboration’ (Rizvi et al., 2022: 4), the individual self-interest and competition required by the neoliberal imaginary of globalisation need to be recast. In light of these shifting conditions and young people’s disposition towards critical hope, history education curriculum will need to be more responsive to contemporary issues and, as Cutrara (2019) highlights, the needs of today’s youth. Our analysis suggests this will be essential if History is to maintain its relevance in the eyes of students – especially those who remain unconvinced. How history education researchers and educators go about making History more relevant and responsive is a crucial question for the prospects of history education worldwide.

In closing

We have advocated for engaging student voices in conversations about the purpose of studying History. Although this article is limited to interpreting just one key question from a national online survey, it demonstrates how the question of relevance is particularly germane in today’s changeable world. As this reflexive thematic analysis suggests, a revival of senior secondary History in Australia – in the form of upward trends in lagging student enrolments – might be possible if History has applicability in students’ present towards future lives.

We do not claim that the data collected from the survey are representative of all Australian students, nor that our RTA has ‘revealed’ any ‘pre-existing themes’ ‘awaiting retrieval’ (Braun and Clarke, 2019: 593). However, the study does offer important insights into the Australian context, where current student-centred research is lacking, and provides a point of comparison with international contexts. It shows Australian students are unique in their tendency to describe History as a subject that is relevant to their lives, and supports the claim that History offers a distinctive lens for interpreting the world – a finding that runs counter to existing history education research that suggests young people tend to see it as a subject area that is irrelevant to their lives (Miguel-Revilla, 2022; Popa, 2022).

Although historians and philosophers have contemplated the past–present–future triad for millennia, and history education scholars have advocated historical consciousness as a key concept for enacting these interconnections for decades, it should not be assumed that students will concomitantly be interested in doing the same. Therefore, acknowledging that students value the idea of using history to make sense of the world throughout their lives indicates that the sort of contemporary history education research we have drawn on throughout this article is moving in the right direction. It provides impetus for curriculum policy makers, history education researchers and school History teachers to implement strategies and frameworks that allow young people to develop ‘the tools to analyse and interpret inter-connections between the past, the present, and the future’ (Ammert et al., 2022: 4). For example, structured activities and discussion about applying historical interpretation to evaluate scenarios about probable and preferable futures ‘provides students practice with articulating their ethical commitments as agents of future social life’ (Den Heyer, 2017: 9). Others have highlighted the need to develop explicit analytic and comparative learning activities to allow students to go deeper, especially when relating difficult histories to wider contexts (Ammert et al., 2022; Van Stratten et al., 2018b). Such approaches could enable students to look beyond superficial aphorisms about history, avoid presentist and universalising assumptions and develop more nuanced interpretations of their temporal positions in the world. Although it is not within the scope of this article to address these recommendations in relation to the goals of official curricula, it prompts important questions for curriculum policy making: To what extent do History curricula explicitly cater for such approaches that connect past–present–future? How might changes to the goals and organisation of History curricula engage more students in more meaningful ways? These sorts of questions are best addressed alongside content analyses of official curricula, which is an element of our project we will explore in other publications.

We close by giving the final word to one of the participants who chose not to continue with History in the senior years:

I do believe that it is important for students to learn about the past … But what is deemed important tends to overshadow or not include information that would be beneficial to know and teaches people (students included) vital lessons.

This student points to some enduring questions for history education. If students like this are going to find rationales for studying history more compelling, then our challenge is to not only listen to them but also commit to responding to their feedback – something that politicians, like Minister Tudge, have not been interested in doing when espousing their beliefs about the purpose of history.