Abstract:
Currently, STEM, literacy and numeracy are positioned by politicians as forms of learning critical to securing the national interest in a globalized world during challenging times. However, in this political context in Queensland, History is no longer deemed compulsory for students to study to year 10 in the Humanities and Social Sciences learning area for the Australian Curriculum. As a subject that is based on something that no longer exists, the past (Portal, 1987), History may well seem insignificant in challenging times. Yet, as Portal (1987) reminds us, the past exists in another sense namely, through the ways in which we interpret and reconstitute its remaining sources and in the intellectual inheritance we have. Further, it can be argued that that as disciplinary knowledge, History continues to be a powerful form of knowledge in education by providing an epistemic structure and form over time (Yates, Woeltert, Millar & O'Connor, 2017; Young, 2009, 2013).
In this paper, we present some of the findings from a small pilot study conducted in late 2016 into how history teachers in Queensland junior secondary schools use texts in the classroom to develop young people's disciplinary knowledge. This research project intersects with emerging international research which explores how young people in history classrooms make sense of various social, political and ethical domains of past actions encapsulated and represented in texts and how they consider their consequences for present day realities. Such research reveals that historical consciousness is a powerful element in framing collective and individual identities (R
In this paper, we present some of the findings from a small pilot study conducted in late 2016 into how history teachers in Queensland junior secondary schools use texts in the classroom to develop young people's disciplinary knowledge. This research project intersects with emerging international research which explores how young people in history classrooms make sense of various social, political and ethical domains of past actions encapsulated and represented in texts and how they consider their consequences for present day realities. Such research reveals that historical consciousness is a powerful element in framing collective and individual identities (R