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occasion Indigenous representations are included with non-Indigenous topics; they are still
generally portrayed only as belonging to a very traditional environment (see for example, the
front cover of the 1987 Primary Social Studies syllabus and guidelines at Source 7.97).
Source 7.97. Front cover of the 1987 Primary Social Studies syllabus and guidelines
(Department of Education, 1987b, n.p.).
The curriculum in the primary grades still positions Indigenous Australians very much in a
traditional environment. They are not part of mainstream society, as urban dwellers or
anything else of the sort, nor do they play a role in any aspect of modern Australia (that is
anything that is post-1788). Instead they are still only included in units of work that
specifically, and solely, cover aspects of Aboriginality, often in such an a-historical way (for
example kinship and moiety systems) that it does not strictly fall within the discipline of
History. It is not until students enter high school that Indigenous Australians are represented
in a variety of ways, such as for example, the Wave Hill Station Strike (Stewart, 1986; Cowie,
1982), and the 1967 referendum (Cowie, 1982). Indigenous peoples are still represented as
something other than ‘normal’; as an anomaly, something different, as the ‘Other’. So,
although there is evidence of significant changes in discourses, overall there is still a sense of
Indigenous Australians existing only on the peripheral of History curriculum.
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