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Appendix A: Contexts
A1.1 Introduction
In recent times, there has been a worldwide emergence and rise of neo-conservatism. Located
within a ‘Western’ paradigm, competing views of how national histories have influenced
present cultural understandings of citizenship in individual nations have received widespread
attention from the press, politics, education institutions, popular culture and the public in
general. The impact of the rise of neo-conservatism appears to be significant in charting
changes to education. In defining this emerging political ideology, it can be seen that neoconservatism;
pursues economics-based ideologies to further the influence of developing
global capitalism. Fairclough explains the impact of language use in the increasing promotion
of neo-liberal policies and actions:
The term ‘neo-liberalism’ can be understood as referring to a political project aimed
at removing obstacles (such as states with strong welfare programmes) to the full
development of capitalism (Bourdieu, 1988)…a particularly important aspect of neoliberal
discourse is the representations of change in the ‘global economy’ which are
pervasive in contemporary societies—representations of economic change as
inevitable and irresistible, and something we must simply learn to live with and adapt
to. (2001, p. 128)
An influential aspect of neo-conservative politics is their ability to achieve ideological success
over the minds of ordinary citizens. So, even when physical conflicts are not being clearly
won, for example the United States’ involvement in the Middle East, the ideological battles
can be waged and won. Kincheloe links this with the culture wars by writing “those corporate
advocates of privatization and empire may not be winning in Iraq, but they are certainly
finding success in their preemptive strikes in the knowledge wars” (2008, p. 12).
This overview looks at a period of a little more than a decade in order to situate the broader
research that has been completed in this dissertation within a definitive time frame. Whilst
the data for this project was derived from across an almost hundred year time period, this
overview is written to establish a background context for the importance of History
curriculum as a topic of investigation in its contemporary cultural and political environment.
This issue has become a topic of importance due to a shift in educational thinking in some
sections of the community of what history is and how it should be taught in schools. In
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