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suggestions on how teachers are to achieve this activity, see Source 7.22. It is indicative of
the way knowledge is presented as fluid, problematic and open to inquiry throughout the year
5 sourcebook. Here, teachers are encouraged to discuss the gaps in historical knowledge and
assumptions that historians make, with students invited to engage actively in this process, as
seen through the following suggested question to post to students: “Why do you think there is
some doubt among historians about how and when Australia was first inhabited?”
(Department of Education, 1988a, p. 10).
Source 7.22. “Procedure” extract about Indigenous history from Primary Social
Studies sourcebook year 5 (Department of Education, 1988a, p. 10).
Whilst the knowledge of how Indigenous Australians came to live in Australia is presented as
problematic, once the unit moves to consider Great Britain’s “Motives for settlement”
(Department of Education, 1988a, p. 22), there is no further inclusion of Indigenous
Australians in the curriculum (with the exception of one paragraph on page 31 that represents
Indigenous Australians as a hindrance to explorers). This demonstrates that issues outside of
any modern or contemporary context can be broached openly and problematically, yet in
contemporary Australian history, Indigenous Australians are still silenced, omitted from
national history.
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