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In academia, the move is away from an objective, descriptive narrative and a past
which can be known towards histories which are reflective, socially critical and selfinterrogating.
In the public domain, it is paralleled by a surge of interest in anything
vaguely historical. The Australian community continues to demonstrate a popular
interest in the past, not in History as a discipline, but History as an entertaining
window on the past...
In primary and secondary schools, both trends are discernible. History is widely seen
as a curriculum content area which promotes knowledge about the past – a selection
of truths, insights, facts and collective memories about important events and people.
This engagement with the past is enjoyed through reading, excursions, role play,
dress-ups, debates, posters and projects. But there is also a trend towards a concept
of the past as a contested space and a record of events that needs interrogation...Was
Caroline Chisholm really a friend of female immigrants? Was Ned Kelly really
struggling against the injustice suffered by poor rural farmers? Was Breaker Morant
really a victim of British military capitalism? Chisholm, Kelly and Morant are
fascinating characters from our past and their lives are worth studying and
proclaiming – but the stories we have told about them – at the time and since - also
need scrutinising. (2000, p. 2)
2.7.4.2 Studies of constructions of citizenship in History curriculum.
Curriculum studies in the Social Studies or History area often incorporate aspects of
citizenship. This is seen, for example, in Pike’s (2007) study of moral and citizenship
education in England (Pike, 2007); Halbert’s (2006) investigations of the construction of the
‘citizen’; the Crick (1998) report on citizenship as part of Social Sciences in the UK; and
Pinar et al.’s (2002) overview of history textbook studies and controversies (particularly
politically right wing criticisms) from a USA citizenship context. The incorporation of
citizenship education has now been made an explicit component of the school curriculum in
England. Arthur, Davies, Wrenn, Haydn and Kerr (2001) investigate the historical context
that led to this decision, and in particular focus on the place of the school subject, History,
addressed to teachers as “…in pursuing work that focuses on citizenship and that there are
important, useful and straightforward ways in which the legitimate development of
citizenship can take place within the ‘home’ department” (2001, p. xxiv). This is due to
History generally being the only school curriculum area explicitly seen to cover issues of
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