Teaching the Nation: Politics and Pedagogy in Australian History
Teaching the Nation cover

All downloadable
book files are provided
in Acrobat PDF

Teaching the Nation: Politics and Pedagogy in Australian History is available as both an e-book (downloadable PDF files) or a d-book (print-on-demand). Both versions are available for online purchase at the MUP e-store.

The 'History Wars' have come to dominate discussion of Australian history in recent years, and they have been waged over various national sites of celebration and commemoration.

Anna Clark suggests that this anxiety over Australia's past has intensified as debate grows over how to teach 'our history' to 'our children'.

Arguments rage over whether to teach the colonisation of Australia as an 'invasion' or a 'settlement', and whether students need to know Australia's first prime minister. Meanwhile, many school children still think Australian history is boring and irrelevant.

In light of John Howard's recent call for a change in how history is currently taught in schools, Teaching the Nation examines the politics and pedagogy of Australian history education at a time when the nation's history seems more hotly debated than ever.

Chapter Synopses

 

Introduction

The Introduction to Teaching the Nationis available as a free download.

Every few months, yet another call for a stronger history education comes from a politician, academic or commentator, generating another round of public comment and debate over the subject. Australian history is frequently dismissed as ‘boring' and ‘irrelevant' by students, yet it continues to arouse heated public debate. By studying various outbreaks of this recurring debate we can begin to understand how history education has become such a powerful and complex site of public anxiety.

free download

Conclusion

free download

Bibliography

free download

Index

free download

Chapter 1: The politics of history education

History has been the subject of considerable dispute in recent years and the ‘history wars', as they have come to be known, have been played out over public institutions and commemorations such as the National Museum and Anzac Day. History education is also a powerful site of national identity, where questions over what history to teach and how to teach it are contested in syllabuses and textbooks across the country.

back to top

buy chapter

Chapter 2: An international debate

The history wars are not restricted to Australia. Mirroring the contest over how to teach colonial history in Australian syllabuses, for instance, New Zealand debates over the language of colonisation have caused considerable disquiet and alarm. This chapter also includes discussions from Japan, the United States and Canada to show how debates over ‘teaching the nation' rage around the world.

back to top

buy chapter

Chapter 3: The syllabus in the making

Educational methodology is also critical to understanding history education. The nation's story is powerfully conceived in the syllabus, which defines the nation and how its history should be taught. This pedagogical question about Australian history teaching is vital for expanding discussions of ‘the nation' to related questions about how to teach it.

back to top

buy chapter

Chapter 4: Teaching and learning history

Since the 1960s history in Australia has been taught either as a discipline in its own right or as part of an integrated subject such as Social Studies. Debates over how history is best taught and understood form the basis of this chapter into educational approaches to the subject.

back to top

buy chapter

Chapter 5: History in a national framework

History's place in schools continues to shape debate over the subject's status and relevance. A number of historians and educationists fear that the current teaching approaches (such as Studies of Society and Environment, or SOSE) have damaged the discipline beyond repair, while others view this integrated approach as nationally and educationally 'relevant'.

back to top

buy chapter

Chapter 6: Tomorrow's citizens

Recent surveys have revealed alarming levels of historical and political knowledge among young Australians. Critics have argued that the results indicate a grave and growing national illiteracy among Australian schoolchildren. The results have also generated high levels of public anxiety about the state of the subject in schools, especially concern over declining standards and core national knowledge.

back to top

buy chapter