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through The Courier Mail, as well as my professional experience of being a high school
History and English teacher at the time, were used as motivating factors in conducting the
research for this project. The important role of the debates in influencing public opinion of
schooling and raising awareness of, and interest in national history cannot be downplayed
(finer points of this debate are taken up in Appendix A: Contexts).
In addition to the Queensland-specific context briefly described here, this topic is of a timely
nature to research. In recent times History curriculum and the way in which it finds voice
within the various school curriculum frameworks in operation throughout Australia has come
to the attention and scrutiny of media, public opinion and commentary. Furthermore, it has
attracted government and parliamentary interest, on a nation-wide scale. The then Prime
Minister John Howard, particularly around the time of the Centenary of Federation in 2001,
expressed personal and governmental concerns about his perception of the teaching of
Australian history. His 2006 Australia Day Address called for a “…root and branch renewal
of the teaching of Australian history in our schools, both in terms of the numbers learning and
the way it is taught” (Howard, 2006, n.p.). Federal government influencing of school
curriculum continued with (now former) Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who stated his support
for a national curriculum while Opposition Leader (“Rudd proposes national school
curriculum”, 2007); and continued support when elected to government in 2007, support that
has continued with the Labor government. This is also evidenced through continued Federal
government projects set up to address claimed deficits identified in the teaching of history
and associated subjects, and committees established to write a History syllabus for nationwide
implementation. This study presents as an important opportunity to contribute to the
national debates currently in progress, particularly connecting the history/culture wars with
the (proposed) national curriculum. 1
It is apparent that many people—as evidenced, for example, through letters to the editor—
struggle with the concept that history is a contested area of learning, one where multiple
realities are presented, with one, ultimate truthful answer to a question in history not always
apparent, appropriate or even possible to find. This struggle appears to be compounded by the
simplified conservative binary perspectives taken by popular news media. See, for example,
Andrew Bolt’s (2000) Class Revolution, criticizing the then-new SOSE syllabus with claims
1
At the time of writing, March 2010, the first draft of this national curriculum in History was released for public
comment.
2