The ‘Indigenous Australian ’ theme in the Australian Curriculum English: Necessary or not?

• Main Authors: Beryl Exley, Lisa Kervin
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.671.6442; http://www.alea.edu.au/documents/item/842/

of the inaugural Australian curriculum. In his three and half minute televised justification, Pyne (2014) identified a number of criticisms of the national curriculum document, including the ‘necessity to have themes ’ of ‘Australia’s place in Asia, Indigenous Australia and sustainability’. It is the second of these themes that we consider as ALEA’s Hot Topic for March 2014. We respond to Pyne’s momentary musing of the necessity of the ‘Indigenous Australian ’ theme in the Australian Curriculum with a particular focus on the discipline of English. In the nomenclature of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2013), we are of course referring to the ‘cross curriculum priority ’ of ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures’. In Australia, the context in which we each undertake our work as English Curriculum and Literacy educationalists and researchers, the 1991 Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody provided the impetus for a more overt reconciliation process (Reconciliation Australia, 2012). Despite guarded optimism from multiple quarters, it still took 17 years for one of the most fundamental reconciliation events to occur; a newly elected Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, publically apologised to Australia’s first nations people on behalf