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widespread use, instead forming part of school library collections for students, particularly
secondary students, to use for research essays and projects; and for teachers to consult and
use to supplement their planned curriculum. There seems to be a small number of texts
written about Indigenous Australians that were used by individual schools, although not
necessarily widely spread across the State, as those selected for analysis were. These books
include: Among the first Australians: The story of an aboriginal family (1958); Bennelong
(Johnson, Berkeley, Hamilton, & Scott, 1970); Australian Aboriginals (Department of
Aboriginal Affairs, 1974); Aranda boy (Ingamells, 1960); An Australian muster (Phillips,
1961); and Australia and Britain in the nineteenth century (Andrews et al, 1973).
6.2.4 Indigenous representations in textbooks.
What clearly stands out in the textbooks is the lack of content related to Indigenous
Australians, particularly in high school textbooks, but also in primary school texts. This is a
clear reflection of the syllabus which does not contain significant content of Indigenous
representations in Australian history. This point is illustrated by drawing on all publications
within one particular series, the Queensland School Readers. These books, widely regarded
as comprising the canon of literature for school students, contains very limited examples of
Indigenous representations. From the Readers published between 1946 and 1967, Queensland
school reader: Grade 7 (Department of Public Instruction, 1957/1960/1963/1967) is the only
book that contains any information about Indigenous Australians. This is in the form of a
poem titled The Last of his Tribe by Australian poet H.C. Kendall, detailing the period before
death of an Aboriginal tribal elder.
Indigenous representations are more common in the Social Studies for Queensland Schools
textbook series. As expanded on in the analysis below, the defining feature of this content is
that it represents Indigenous Australians as belonging to the past either in traditional lifestyles
or as interacting with explorers. The Grade 7 textbook from this series is a rare exception to
this type of representation, where instead Indigenous Australians are shown in contemporary
environments, if only in a very limited space, primarily as workers on cattle stations and life
on a mission station.
As a result of the majority of content of Indigenous representations being located in textbooks
and curriculum materials for primary school students, the focus in this era will necessarily be
on the primary years of schooling. In any case, in the main, secondary school history
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