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puts emphasis on the celebration of selected memories of independence...” (2005, p. 351).
Looking towards the United Kingdom context, Husbands et al. (2003) identify the traditional
approach to curriculum as the great tradition, which began to shift to a more progressivist
approach or alternative tradition in the 1960s and 1970s.
In an Australian context, Hoepper and Quanchi (2000) discuss the traditional approach to
curriculum by drawing on ways in which it has been formerly constructed, writing: “the old
History with its description of progress, order, authority, great men and great events, cause
and effect, chronology, enduring traditions and admiration for antiquity is now challenged by
a different History” (p. 3). Hoepper and Quanchi then go on to describe traditional curriculum
approaches as used in schools for the teaching of History and Social Studies. Their
statements, as well as those made by Issitt (2004), regarding the pedagogical use of textbooks
including student reading of set texts, affirms the decision made in this project to analyse
textbooks as accurate representations of the content students engaged with in the classroom.
Locating a shift in curriculum in Australia around the same time as Husbands et al. (2003)
identify for the United Kingdom, Hoepper and Quanchi write:
Until the 1970s, the ‘Old History’ had dominated schools. History was presented as a
straightforward and undebated chronicle of the past. It was often the story of heroic
men and their wondrous achievements. The ‘Old History’ celebrated the
achievements of nationalism, imperialism, militarism and industrialism. In Australian
schools, History had a strong Eurocentric emphasis. Much of what was taught
focused on events and developments in Britain and continental Europe, and on the
expansion of European influence in the rest of the world.
These ‘Old History’ approaches dominated the historical elements of Social
Studies courses in primary schools and the subject of History in secondary schools.
Students spent much time reading the set textbook, listening to the teacher embellish
and explain the stories in the text, and memorising key information about historical
personalities, events and developments. When undertaking projects, students often
copied extracts from encyclopaedia and texts, and dressed them up with illustrations
and colourful headings. (2000, p. 5, emphasis added)
(Whether, and to what degree, the Eurocentric emphasis existed in Australian History
curriculum in Queensland schools until the 1970s is the topic for analysis in Chapter 6: Black
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