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1988 Bicentennial, clearly marking the year as for a site of celebration, optimistic reflection
and renewal.
7.2 Education context
7.2.1 Compulsory age of schooling.
The compulsory age of schooling in the years leading up to and including 1988 had not
changed from The Education Act of 1964, being “not less than six years to 15 years”
(Education Act 1964, ss4), as described in Chapter 6: Black Movement in Australia 1964-
1975. As in this previous era, due to the increased participation rates of school students
enrolling in senior high school (exact figures are not available) beyond the compulsory age of
schooling, these grades have been included for analysis. They also demonstrate a more
sophisticated representation of the two exemplar topics in the core History curriculum. In
particular, it is the Crossroads textbook series of five volumes written and edited by H.R.
Cowie that form the focus of analysis for the senior years of high school, years 11 and 12.
The selection of these textbooks is explained further in the chapter.
7.2.2 Key Syllabus Documents.
Replacing the 1982 syllabus, the Department of Education released a new syllabus for the
primary grades, Primary Social Studies Syllabus and Guidelines (Department of Education,
1987b). This syllabus was a review rather than a complete change, as noted in the foreword
“...the Primary Curriculum Committee started a review of the Social Studies Syllabus in
1982. As a result, the Primary Social Studies Syllabus Committee and its project team...have
spent the past five years improving, rather than changing, the Social Studies Curriculum”
(Department of Education, 1987b, p. iii, emphasis added). The 1987 syllabus, published only
one year before the Bicentennial provides an up-to-date representation of the Social Studies
curriculum for this era, covering grades one to seven and complemented by a series of
sourcebooks designed for teachers to use in the classroom as complete units of work. So, as
the kinds of textbooks of previous eras, for example the Social Studies for Queensland
schools series were no longer published, the sourcebooks can be seen as taking their place,
with anecdotal evidence (from conversations with teachers who taught during the 1980s)
suggesting that the sourcebooks were used widely and, in effect, replaced the previously
issued textbooks. Like in the previous era, History was not a standalone subject for the
primary grades, with an all encompassing Social Studies instead. Compared with previous
eras, an increased move away from even identifying History, Geography and
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