“Sometimes perception will suffice”: Indigenous Knowledges and the Australian Curriculum
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Indigenous Knowledges and content are included in the Australian Curriculum as one of three cross-curriculum priorities (CCPs) that are mandated to be embedded within Foundation to Year 10 school subjects. An often heard concern about this mandate is that teachers are resistant or unprepared to include Indigenous perspectives in their teaching. As we argue in this article, however, it is the curriculum structure itself that may be preventing teachers from conceptualising the “how” of teaching, and students from meaningfully learning, coherent narratives about Indigenous Australia. At the same time, the structure of the curriculum curtails genuine or deep engagement with knowledge-making practices from beyond a Western worldview. In this article, drawing on Moodie’s (Citation2018) decolonising race theory, we present an analysis of interviews with managers of the recent curriculum review process to understand the enablers and constraints of including Indigenous content in the curriculum. We argue that Indigenous Knowledges are purposefully positioned as subservient to Western disciplinary knowledge within the current curriculum structure. Therefore, we assert that there needs to be a more radical re-envisioning of form and content to effect transformational change in how the curriculum serves both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.Footnote1
Source: Curriculum Inquiry
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4408153554