Abstract:
This paper will examine the modern political contexts for development and status of school history in two very different nations, Australia and Russia. In comparing history education environments in Russia and Australia the paper will note that Russia has a long history of autocratic rule marked by frequent eruptions of domestic political violence and by deeply traumatic wars. Currently, Russia is in an uneasy transition period, supposedly moving from dictatorship to a free market democracy via a ‘managed’ (then ‘sovereign’) democracy. From the viewpoint of many western and Russian critics however, the Russian Federation retains some of the features of previous political culture including, for example repressive information management, the cult of the personality, cronyism, continuing ethnic/racial tensions and endemic corruption. In the context of this research project, it is mainly the centralised information management aspect of modern Russian society that will be examined as it is applied (or not) to curriculum policy, documentation and implementation and to the formation of national identity. Australia, on the other hand is a post colonial state that, apart from a harrowing involvement in two world wars and past and continuing issues with its Indigenous peoples, has made a relatively untroubled progress towards constructing itself as modern liberal democracy, developments which will be examined as it is applied (or not) to curriculum policy, documentation and implementation and to the formation of national identity within an Australian national curriculum. The Australian Research Council-funded research that informs this paper includes large-scale surveys carried out amongst teachers in the Russian Federation and in Australia, interviews with curriculum officials and with teachers in both Russia and Australia a well as media surveys in each nation. The initial conclusion at the time of writing is that if an internally consistent national curriculum is regarded as an educational initiative that should principally be thoroughly and comprehensively implemented whatever the pedagogical foundations, then a Russian model would trump the Australian model. This is because the Australian Curriculum is in a state of partial and fragmentary implementation with large elements of internal variation and is subject to capricious political interference. In other words, as currently enacted, the Australian Curriculum in history arguably remains a precariously established, multi-jurisdictional model with spurious national badging. In contrast, the Russian national curriculum in history maintains a steady pace and has a firm and clear direction.