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particular, this includes taking on a more critical approach; versus other sections of the
community who want History curriculum to retain a very traditional, singular perspective
approach.
Whereas it is the case that many active participants in the history/culture wars, from both
sides of the debate, engage in personal (sometimes vindictive) verbal assaults, this overview
investigates the ideologies behind this superficiality by charting key stages of the debate. In
doing so, this overview recognises the key contributors in the commencement, continuation
and proliferation of the history/culture wars devoid of what Mason describes as “...scholarly
debate and discussion which, it is to be hoped, will not be accompanied by the invective and
verbal violence that has given prominence to the History Wars” (MacIntyre & Clark, 2003, p.
viii). The verbal attacks launched between for example, academics, journalists, and
prominent public persons is noted by others too (see, for example, a three-day email
correspondence disagreement between Stuart MacIntyre and Gerard Henderson in G.
Henderson, 2008a; and C. Pearson’s account of an ideological contest between Wilfred Prest,
Michael Connor and Henry Reynolds, 2006). John Kunkel writes, “anything that gets people
talking about (and hopefully reading) Australian history has to be a good thing. The
accompanying spectacle of name-calling and academic bitchiness is surely a bonus” (2003,
p. 2, emphasis added). Marwick disagrees, describing this type of debate as “...sometimes
tainted with self-glorification and the sheer joy of battle” (2001, p. xiv).
This overview is structured to present: an outline of the debates conducted in other nations; a
preliminary establishment of the main focus of debate over the years 1993 to 2007; and a
discussion of the areas of the history/culture wars debate that include and impact on school
education. Focusing on the Queensland experience then sets the scene for the data analysis,
which uses Queensland’s History curriculum across the 20 th century as the case study for the
links between school curriculum and public discourses.
A1.1.2 Australian timeframe.
Commonly referred to as the history/culture wars, these very public and ongoing debates
between historians, academics, journalists, commentators, politicians and other high-profile
public figures are concerned with the ideologies that underpin particular versions of
Australian national history recorded and published and made easily accessible to the general
population. They are mapped in this overview from 1993 to 2007, a period of time that saw
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