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2.7.4.1 Australian contexts.
As an emerging field of interest in more contemporary times; deeply influenced and buoyed
by the history/culture wars (as covered extensively in Appendix A: Contexts), researching
History curriculum, particularly a focus on national history, in various Australian contexts is
starting to form a sustained aspect of study by education researchers. For example, see the
work of Parkes (2006, 2007); A. Clark (2002b, 2006); Halbert (2006); Taylor (2008b); and
earlier, Cope (1987). In particular, more recent research focuses on explicitly identifying the
political discourses surrounding the construction of curriculum, pedagogy and schooling.
Halbert’s work analyses constructions of ‘nation’ and ‘citizen’ and how this is presented to
school students through the formal curriculum and in particular draws on “...Foucault’s
theories of subjectivity, governmentality, and technologies of self [to] deconstruct taken-forgranted
meanings...” (2006, p. 3). Halbert does this through analysis of the syllabus itself,
rather than the classroom pedagogical practices that may result. In this way, Halbert’s work is
similar to that conducted for this dissertation, which looks at the school curriculum
documents, such as textbooks, rather than the teacher pedagogical practices that may
accompany them. In addition, and as becomes relevant to this research, particularly in the
analysis of textbooks and syllabuses, Halbert focuses on the contradictions that sometimes
exists within the same curriculum documents, writing, “given the demands on history evident
in the literature, it is not surprising that there are tensions in the syllabus. Within the syllabus,
multiple discourses construct the student not only as a national citizen but as a social subject
more broadly” (2006, p. 3). The contradictions, if any, that exist in curriculum documents
throughout the three eras investigated for this project will be examined and included in the
final analysis.
Various state and federal governments have also focused an increased amount of attention on
History curriculum, with a number of reports and studies commissioned over the past two
decades. For example, the National Inquiry into School History (2000) led by Taylor
highlights the wide interest governments have in influencing this KLA. Hoepper and
Quanchi, both former History teachers in Queensland schools, discuss the contentious nature
in which the discipline of History has become known both in the general community and in
schools by emphasising the popularity of what they term “anything vaguely historical” (2000,
p. 2). In particular, of the connection between the popularity of topics of the past, void of
features of scholarly historical study infiltrating school curriculum Hoepper and Quanchi
write:
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