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4.2.1 Reading curriculum documents within their historical context.
The research conducted for this project does not seek to express criticism or pass judgement
on textbooks from past eras for their inclusion or exclusion of specific topics or on the
discourses that emerge from those that are included. This is not the purpose of the research.
Rather, individual textbooks and other school curriculum materials are analysed in order to
determine the meta-discourses present in History curriculum related specifically to
Australia’s national history. From this, conclusions can be drawn regarding topics such as:
critical use of sources; narrative approach to History curriculum; curriculum as gatekeeper of
conservative content and values or agent for change; use of primary and secondary sources;
and exemplar topics on the periphery of, or absent from, national history. This then forms
part of the conclusion for each of the three data analysis chapters. It is especially important to
make the point of not expressing criticism or passing judgments on textbooks (and, by
default, those who authored them) from past eras for a number of reasons. First, to increase
likelihood of wide-spread take up by schools across the State, textbooks need to follow the
curriculum closely, as encapsulated (in Queensland, at least) by the syllabus. Second,
textbooks are a source of their time, and therefore need to be regarded as historical artefacts
in their own right. It is likely that if the same people who wrote textbooks in previous eras
were to write textbooks now, then the information in them would be significantly different,
reflecting changes in syllabuses, new developments in historical knowledge and in content
pedagogy; including the way textbooks are used. The H.R. Cowie textbooks (1975, 1980,
1982), analysed in Chapter 6: Black Movement in Australia 1964-1975 and Chapter 7: 1988
Bicentennial Era provide an example of this, in particular in the area of Indigenous
representations.
Each syllabus published is the official rationale, a component of the official knowledge
(Apple, 2000); with the textbooks as the explanation or translation of this rationale, one way
in which the syllabus is brought alive. Textbooks and syllabuses, therefore, act as
complementary documents, particularly in times when a traditional approach has been taken
to school curriculum and when authored and distributed by the Department of Education
itself. Particularly in the Queensland context of History teaching, textbooks and later
sourcebooks written, published and disseminated by the Department of Education make up
the bulk of primary school curriculum documents throughout the 20 th century. The selection
of individual textbooks, particularly when not published by the Department of Education,
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