Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article analyses examples of democratic values within content about forms of government as evident in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration and the Australian Curriculum: History. Taking a contemporary focus of the current national curriculum implemented in 2011—which was the first iteration of Australia's first national curriculum, the paper examines forms of government as presented to students from their historical and any current day perspectives. In Australia, History is a compulsory subject for primary school to year 10 in high school (when students are generally 16 years of age). History then splits into Modern History and Ancient History as elective courses of study in the senior years of schooling and History Extension which focuses on historiography. The analysis of curriculum shows that opportunities to introduce into the classroom current day topics in relation to citizenship, democracy, and functions of government are missed in lieu of content that stays in the past within its own chronological historical context.

Keywords

Democracy history education critical discourse analysis curriculum democratic consciousness

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

ACARA (2009) Shape of the Australian Curriculum: History. Available at: https://docs.acara.edu.au/resources/Australian_Curriculum_-_History.pdf (accessed 25 October 2024).

ACARA (2021) Final report: Humanities and Social Sciences. Available at:https://www.acara.edu.au/docs/default-source/curriculum/australian-curriculum- review/humanand-social-sciences-final-report-australian-curriculum-review.pdf (accessed 21 September 2024).

ACARA (2023) History (version 8.4). Available at: https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10- curriculum/humanities-and-socialsciences/history/ (accessed 21 September 2024).

Ahonen

(2017) Commentary. In: Epstein

Peck

(eds) Teaching and Learning Difficult Histories in International Contexts: A Critical Sociocultural Approach. New York: Routledge, 136–142.

APS Reform (2023) Trust and Satisfaction in Australian Democracy. Australian Government: Canberra.

Arvanitakis

Marren

(2009) Putting the politics back into politics: Young people and democracy in Australia: Discussion paper. Available at: https://www.whitlam.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/82776/whitlam_discussionpaper.pdf (accessed 21 September 2024).

Bedford

Kerby

(2024) Australia’s national(ist) history curriculum: History education as a site of attempted de-democratisation. Curriculum Perspectives 44: 463–474. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-024-00248-9.

Billig

(2000) Research on K-12 School Based Service Learning: The Evidence Builds. School K-12. Paper 3.

Blaine

(2021) Top blokes: The larrakin myth, class and power. Available at: https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2021/09/top-blokes (accessed 21 September 2024).

10.

Blainey

(1993) Drawing up a balance sheet of our history. Quadrant 37(7/8): 10–15.

11.

Blainey

(2001) The centenary of Australia’s Federation: What should we celebrate? Available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/∼/∼/link.aspx? _id=7886EE143B0A43249B78F15D0425681C (accessed 21 September 2024).

12.

Board of Studies NSW (1998) History Syllabus: 7-10. Sydney, Australia: Board of Studies.

13.

Board of Studies NSW (2012) History Syllabus: 7-10. Sydney, Australia: Board of Studies.

14.

Boomer

Lester

Onore

, et al. (1992) Negotiating the Curriculum: Educating for the 21st Century. Washington, DC: Falmer.

15.

Bottrell

Freebody

Goodwin

(2011) School-community engagement: Shifting boundaries of policy and practice. Available at: https://www.aare.edu.au/data/publications/2011/aarefinal00502.pdf (accessed 21 September 2024).

16.

Brunker

(2024) Escape oppression now: Disrupt the dominance of evidence-based practice. Available at: https://blog.aare.edu.au/escape-oppression-now-disrupt-the-dominance-of-evidence-based-practice/ (accessed 21 September 2024).

17.

Clark

(2016) Private Lives, Public History. Melbourne, Victoria: Melbourne University Press.

18.

Counsell

(2011) Disciplinary knowledge for all: The secondary history curriculum and history teachers’ achievement. The Curriculum Journal 22(2): 201–225.

19.

Drabsch

(2013) Parliamentary Briefing Paper No. 1: The Australian Curriculum. Available at: https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Documents/the-australian -curriculum/The%20Australian%20Curriculum.pdf (accessed 21 September 2024).

20.

Education Council (2019) The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration. Canberra, Australia: Council of Australian Governments Education Council.

21.

Erebus Consulting Group (2003) Evaluation of the Discovering Democracy Programme 2000–2003: A Report to the Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training. Canberra, Australia: DEST.

22.

Evans

Stoker

Halupka

(2018) Australians’ trust in politicians and democracy hits an all-time low. The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/australians-trust-in-politicians-an d-democracy-hits-an-all-time-low-new-research-108161 (accessed 21 September 2024).

23.

Foley

(2010) A short history of Australian indigenous resistance. Available at: http://kooriweb.org/foley/resources/pdfs/229.pdf (accessed 21 September 2024).

24.

Fraillon

Ainley

Schulz

, et al. (2014) Preparing for LIfe in a Digital Age: The IEA International Computer and Information Literacy Study International Report. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Springer Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14222-7.

25.

Freire

(2005) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, London: Continuum.

26.

Golledge

(2024) Shaping citizens: Teachers enacting democratic education in the history classroom. Curriculum Perspectives 44: 489–500. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-024-00239-w.

27.

Gonski

Arcus

Boston

, et al. (2018). Through Growth to Achievement: The Report of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.

28.

Goss

Hunter

(2015) Targeted teaching: How better use of data can improve student learning. Available at: https://grattan.edu.au/report/targeted-teaching-how-better-use-of-data-can-improve-student-learning/ (accessed 21 September 2024).

29.

Graham

(2024) I studied how rumours and misleading information spread on X during the Voice Referendum. The results paint a worrying picture. The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/i-studied-how-rumours-and-misleading-information-spread-on-x -during-the-voice-referendum-the-results-paint-a-worrying-picture-236220.

30.

Harris

Coleman

Cook

(2023) Radical rubrics: Implementing the critical and creative thinking general capability through an ecological approach. Australian Educational Researcher 50: 729–745.

31.

Hart

Donnelly

Youniss

, et al. (2007) High school community service as a predictor of adult voting and volunteering. American Educational Research Journal 44(1): 197–219.

32.

Heggart

(2015) Social capital and civics and citizenship: Developing a framework for activist education. Issues in Educational Research 25(3): 276–290.

33.

Heggart

(2022) Australian Teachers as democracy workers. In: Heggart

Kolber

(eds) Empowering Teachers and Democratising Schooling: Perspectives from Australia. Singapore: Springer Nature, 129–142.

34.

Heggart

Flowers

Burridge

, et al. (2018) Refreshing critical pedagogy and citizenship education through the lens of justice and complexity pedagogy. Global Studies of Childhood 8(4): 355–467.

35.

Hemming

McKinley

(2015) Major wars and regional responses in Australia and New Zealand: International relations as apologetics and exegesis (and inadequate). Available at: https://web.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/New%20Orleans%202015/Archive /e8cce739-3c5b-4cdc-8692-a011f210e4e3.pdf (accessed 21 September 2024).

36.

Howard

(1996) The Liberal tradition: The beliefs and values which guide the Federal Government. Available at: http://menzieslecture.org/1996.html (accessed 21 September 2024).

37.

Ianziti

(2004) Windschuttle at War: The politics of historiography in Australia. Available at: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/636/1/ianziti_gary.pdf (accessed 21 September 2024).

38.

Kayrooz

Parker

(2010) The education revolutionary road: Paved with good intentions. In: Aulich

Evans

(eds) The Rudd Government: Australian Commonwealth Administration 2007-2010. Canberra, Australia: ANU Press, 161–179.

39.

Kennedy

(1997) Citizenship Education and the Modern State. London: Routledge.

40.

Kelly

Rigney

L-I

(2022). Unsettling the reason of time: Indigenist epistemology and the child in the Australian curriculum. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 43(3): 386–404. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2021.2019889.

41.

Kubler

Johnstone

McLay

, et al. (2021) Consultation report on proposed revisions to the Australian Curriculum: Arts. Report, Institute for Social Research, Brisbane, Australia.

42.

Lake

(2018) Beyond ANZAC: What really shaped our nation? Pursuit. Accessible at: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/beyond-anzac-what-really-shaped-our-nation (accessed 25 October 2024)

43.

Lee

(2017) Sino-Australian relations since the end of the Keating Government: A Beijing perspective. Political Science 49(2): 252–274.

44.

Louden

(2014) Australian Curriculum review: What the submissions say. Available at: https://theconversation.com/australian-curriculum-review-what-the-submissions-say-29319 (accessed 21 September 2024).

45.

Macintosh

Inglis

WFJ

(eds) (1979) The schools council history 13-16 project: The CSE examination some problems of assessment. Teaching History 24: 22–24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43255598.

46.

Marsh

(2009) Key concepts for understanding curriculum. London: Routledge.

47.

Martin

Wodak

(2003) Re/Reading the Past: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Time and Value. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.

48.

MCEETYA (2008) Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. Melbourne: Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.

49.

McIntyre

Clark

(2004) The History Wars. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press.

50.

McIntyre

Taylor

(2017) Cultural wars and history textbooks in democratic societies. In: Carretero

Berger

Grever

(eds) Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 613–636. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52908-4_32.

51.

McKenna

(1997) Different perspectives on black armband history. Available at: https://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/story3.html#BLACK (accessed 21 September 2024).

52.

McKenna

(2018) Moment of truth: History and Australia’s future. Quarterly Essay 69: 1–139.

53.

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) (1999) The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-first Century. Canberra, Australia: Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.

54.

Murphy

Swain

(2024) Australian teachers’ adoption of critical and creative thinking as curriculum. Australian Educational Researcher. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-024-00714-3.

55.

Nally

(2024) A democratic curriculum for the challenges of post-truth. Curriculum Perspectives 44: 229–245.

56.

Norlin

Keynes

Drugge

(2024) Truth commissions and teacher education in Australia and the Northern Nordics. Genealogy 68(8): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy8020068.

57.

O’Loughlin

(1997) Education for citizenship: Integrating knowledge, imagination, and democratic dispositions. Forum of Education 52(2): 24–33.

58.

Parliament of Australia (2024) Inquiry into Civics Education, Engagement, and Participation in Australia. Available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/Civicseducation (accessed 21 September 2024).

59.

Plato (2000) The Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

60.

Potter

Wetherell

(1994) Analysing discourse. In: Bryman

Burgess

(eds) Analyzing Qualitative Data. London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 47–66.

61.

Reid

(2005) Rethinking national curriculum collaboration: Towards an Australian curriculum. Report, University of Melbourne, Australia. Available at: https://rest.neptune-prod. its.unimelb.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/42d37ef0-1429-5f2c-845d-962ff587238c/content (accessed 21 September 2024).

62.

Rickinson

Walsh

Gleeson

, et al. (2023) The Q Project: Improving the use of research evidence in Australian schools. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/V27FX.

63.

Roochink

(2024) Plato’s ambivalent assessment of democracy. Society. 61, 303–308.

64.

Sanders

Allen-Jones

Abel

(2005) Involving families and communities in the education of children and youth placed at risk. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education 101(2): 171–188.

65.

Scoular

(2018) Equipping teachers with tools to assess and teach general capabilities. Available at: https://research.acer.edu.au/research_conference/RC2018/13august/10/ (accessed 21 September 2024).

66.

Seixas

Morton

(2013) The Big Six: Historical Thinking Concepts. Toronto: Nelson Education.

67.

Sharp

Parkes

(2023) National identity in the history curriculum in Australia: Educating for citizenship. In: Ting

HMH

Cajani

(eds) Negotiating Ethnic Diversity and National Identity in History Education. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 173–196.

68.

Sharp

Parkes

Donnelly

(2017) Competing discourses of national identity: History teacher education students’ perspectives of the Kokoda and Gallipoli campaigns. International Journal of Research on History Didactics, History Education and History Culture 38: 73–94.

69.

Sharp

, et al. (2021) Why is the education system organised in this way? In: Sharp

Hudson

Weatherby-Fell

Charteris

Brown

Lodge

(eds) Introduction to Education: Knowledge, Practice, Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 65–90.

70.

Shemilt

(1980) The schools council history project: History 13–16 evaluation study. Edinburgh: Holmes MacDougall.

71.

Sheppard

Biddle

(2015) Social class in Australia: Beyond the ‘working’ and ‘middle’ classes. Report for The Australian National University Poll 19, Canberra.

72.

Skilbeck

(1980) Core curriculum for Australian schools: What it is and why we need one. Curriculum Development Centre, Canberra.

73.

Skourdoumbis

(2016) Articulations of teaching practice: A case study of teachers and “general capabilities”. Asia Pacific Education Review 17: 545–554.

74.

Stephenson

Handal

Watson

, et al. (2023) Professional experience in times of COVID-19. In: Winslade

Loughland

Eady

(eds) Work-Integrated Learning Case Studies in Teacher Education. Singapore: Springer, 347–364. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6532-6_27.

75.

Taylor

(2007) National history curriculum: Initial advice. Available at: https://www.acara.edu.au/_resources/History_Initial_Advice_Paper.pdf (accessed 21 September 2024).

76.

Taylor

(2012) Under siege from right and left: A tale of the Australian school history wars. In: Taylor

Guyver

(eds) History Wars and the Classroom. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 25–50.

77.

Thorpe

Ten Kate

Burgess

(2024) Reimagining democraqutic education by positioning Aboriginal country-centred learning as foundational to curriculum and pedagogy. Curriculum Perspectives 44: 205–216.

78.

Threadgold

(2003) Cultural studies, critical theory and critical discourse analysis: Histories, remembering and futures. Linguistik Online 14(2): 1–37.

79.

Tingle

(2012) Great expectations: Government, entitlement and an angry nation. Quarterly Essay 46: 1–98.

80.

van Dijk

(1997) The study of discourse. In: van Dijk

(eds) Discourse as Structure and Process. London, United Kingdom: Sage, 1–34.

81.

van Dijk

(2001a) Multidisciplinary CDA. In: Wodak

Meyer

(eds) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London, United Kingdom: Sage, 95–120.

82.

van Dijk

(2001b) Principles of critical discourse analysis. In: Wetherell

Taylor

Yates

(eds) Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader. London, United Kingdom: Sage, 300–317.

83.

Wescott

(2022) The post-truth tyrannies of an evidence-based hegemony. Education Policy Analysis Archives 30(95): 1–22.

84.

Wilson

Dudley

Dutton

, et al. (2023) A systematic review of pedagogical interventions on the learning of historical literacy in schools. History Education Research Journal 20(1): 1–27.

85.

Windschuttle

(2002) The Fabrication of Aboriginal History: The Stolen Generations 1881-2008. Paddington, Australia: MacLeay Press.

86.

Wodak

(2004) National and transnational identities: European and other identities constructed in interviews with EU officials. In: Herrmann

Rüsse

Brewer

(eds) Transnational Identities: Becoming European in the EU. Oxford: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers Inc, 97–128.

87.

Wodak

de Cillia

Reisigl

, et al. (1999) The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Hirsch

Mitten

(trans). Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press, 7–48.

88.

Woodroffe

Chauhan

(2024) ‘Tell students they can do it’: How Aboriginal people can inspire each other to become teachers. Available at: https://theconversation.com/tell-students-they-can-do- it-how-aboriginal-people-can-inspire-each-other-to-become-teachers-233565 (accessed 21 September 2024).

89.

Yunkaporta

Kirby

(2011) Yarning up aboriginal pedagogies: A dialogue about eight aboriginal ways of learning. In: Purdie

Milgate

Bell

(eds) Two Way Teaching and Learning: Toward Culturally Reflective and Relevant Education. Melbourne, Australia: ACER Press, 205–213.

Discourses of democratic consciousness in key Australian curriculum documents

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References