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5.3 Categories Emerging from Analysis
Analyses of curriculum documents for this era focus on British heritages rather than
Indigenous representations. The categories here have been identified as a result of the
preliminary and intermediate analyses (see Appendix D for a sample analysis).
5.3.1 British heritages.
Representations of British heritages are evident through five key categories, and within these
a number of specific discourses emerge. The identified categories and discourses emerging
from analysis are listed below, with the remainder of the chapter reporting the findings of the
analysis:
Category 1: Privileging British heritages
Category 2: Australia’s emotional allegiance to Great Britain
Category 3: Australia’s military allegiance to Great Britain
Category 4: Australia as a colony, or legislatively part of Great Britain
Category 5: World War I
5.4 Category 1: Privileging British Heritages
This category is evident primarily through the Queensland School Readers, for example as
stated in the preface of the Queensland Readers: Book IV:
(1) To instil into the minds of pupils such a love for literature as will last
beyond school-days and be to them a source of permanent profit and delight. To this
end, the lessons have been chosen from a very wide field. Fiction, travel, history,
science, art, biography—all have been laid under tribute; and the result is a collection
of extracts that may will illustrate all this is best in written English. Special attention
has been devoted, in all the books, to Australian subjects, and to the poetical pieces.
Many of the latter can easily be learned by heart, and will prove a “joy forever” to
the diligent scholar. (Department of Public Instruction, 1913a, page iii)
How this is actualized through the content of the Readers provides an interesting focus point
to demonstrate that British heritages are prevalent throughout the stories, poems and history
narratives. For the Queensland Readers: Book IV, at least, a significant amount of content
overtly privileges British heritages and can be found in at least six examples, including: After
Blenheim a poem written by Robert Southey, What is the Best Day in the Year?, Gallant
Gordon, Lament of the Irish Emigrant a poem written by Lady Helen Selina Dufferin, Ye
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