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as ‘Aborigines’, ‘Aboriginals’; less common by individual name, for example ‘Jacky Jacky’,
‘Wylie’, ‘Robert Tudawali’, and ‘Albert Namatjira’; and even less commonly by tribal
affiliation, for example “Gurindji” (Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 167). However, when primary
sources are used not only are they rarely accurately attributed to the original source of author,
for example “A nineteenth century historian” (Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 164), but potentially
inflammatory terms such as ‘savage’, ‘primitive’ and ‘native’ are used (as shown throughout
the analysis of textbooks in this chapter). Whilst it is indicated through quotation marks that a
primary source from a past period of time is being used, there is never any mediation for
students of these terms, resulting in a complicit acceptance, strengthened by the position of
power a textbook has over students and also teachers as a tool of teaching and learning. As a
process of acculturating students into the work of an historian, including primary source
documents even if they do incorporate terms that are no longer socially or politically
acceptable is an important part of that process. However, where the curriculum documents
across the board fail students is that there is no mediation of how these terms are used, either
in the past or in the present, which potentially leads to prejudices and other preconceived,
uneducated views being reinforced, rather than using the texts as an opportunity to challenge
perspectives in consideration of changed socio-political attitudes and beliefs.
6.11.6 Curriculum as gatekeeper of conservative content and values or agent for
change.
Indigenous Australians and Indigenous representations more generally, are portrayed as both
a-historical, out of context and disconnected from other curriculum content (such as excluded
from chronologies of national history); perpetrators of violence against explorers; and
increasingly as victims of white colonisation. This discourse of victimhood infiltrates the
curriculum, particularly in contemporary representations of Indigenous Australians. For
example, one of the few visual representations of Indigenous Australians in a contemporary
setting portrays a group of Indigenous women and children from the outback as an example
of poverty (Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 167), and can be seen as aligned with the dominant
socio-political views of the time, being assimilation.
In different textbooks, there is significant disjuncture of Indigenous representations within
this same era. On the one hand, there are representations of anonymous ‘natives’ interacting
with explorers. Yet, on the other hand, there are occasional stories of Indigenous Australians
belonging to specific tribal groups, for example “Gurindji tribe of Wave Hill” (Blackmore et
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