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the ways they shape everyday life and human experience” (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005, p.
306).
Although heightened in recent years through the history/culture wars, the explicit
politicization of history is not new (Curthoys & Docker, 2006). The context within which it is
taught in schools can be viewed as a reflection of discourses of core or dominant sociopolitical
values operating in society at the time. As such, this research draws on media
articles and similar expressions of dominant public discourses 5 in order to portray the content
of the History curriculum in Queensland schools during selected time periods of the 20 th
century. This research then attempts to provide an interpretation, analysis and commentary of
the dominant ideologies that have influenced the teaching of Australian history in Queensland
schools, particularly in view of the continuing Federal government policy encroachment on
State government education through, for example, the proposed national History curriculum.
1.4 Purpose and Relevance of the Research
The two exemplar topics, representations of Indigenous Australian and British heritages were
selected as topics of focus for a number of reasons. First, in terms of colonial discourses,
these two groups have often been set up in opposition to each other. Binaries have been
created for example, through government legislation, policies and public discourses.
Larbalestier highlights the binary relationships that have been constructed between British
colonialism and Indigenous people, writing “Indigenous Australians were abjectly
interpellated [sic] in Western discourses and interpretations of British colonialism were
entirely one-sided” (2004, para 15). Second, both groups have been at the centre of periods of
rapid social change, three of which are highlighted in this research. At times the groups have
intersected, for example during the 1988 Australian Bicentennial, making comparison of the
exemplar topics during the same time period possible, enriching the analysis of their
respective representations. Third, after a preliminary survey of Queensland textbooks from
1900-2000 these were two topics which were consistently included in school books, with
their occasional omission noteworthy for this exclusion, particularly that of Indigenous
Australians in earlier periods and British heritages in later periods. Fourth, and more as a side
note, the two exemplar topics acting as binaries is reinforced by the early 20 th century novel,
5 For the purposes of this study, dominant values and discourses are those which are usually accepted and, more
importantly perhaps, practiced by the majority of members of a community as “normal”, “just” or “right”.
Gramsci’s (1988) notion of hegemony is central here, and is expanded on in Chapter 3: Methodology, Research
Design and Conduct.
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