Abstract
In a five-stage process, this chapter 1) makes the argument that a national curriculum has the potential to ignore or overlook the needs and specificities of the huge diversity of geography and social space that characterises Australia in the twenty-first century. It then 2) draws a parallel between the scale and nature of reforms of the Australian Curriculum and those introduced by the Wyndham Scheme of compulsory secondary education in the 1960s in NSW, and 3) notes that the emphasis in Wyndham's innovation on the local neighbourhood school allowed the potential for curriculum work that could overcome locational disadvantage for some students, and highlights the importance of understandings of place and place consciousness in particular relation to rural disadvantage. It then 4) discusses the importance of place-conscious and place-based curriculum and pedagogy with regard to a large quasi-national curriculum initiative implemented in response to a real national concern (the sustainability of the Murray-Darling Basin), before concluding with 5) a call for teacher education and curriculum development to attend to the spatial and social diversity that characterises 'Australia' in a National Curriculum.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Creating an Australian curriculum for English |
Editors | Brenton Doecke, Graham Parr , Wayne Sawyer |
Place of Publication | Putney, NSW |
Publisher | Phoenix Education |
Chapter | 2 |
Pages | 21-34 |
Number of pages | 14 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781921586538 |
Publication status | Published - 2011 |