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This fascinating book explores how curriculum content in education was used to cultivate a sense of Australian national identity during the first two decades of the twentieth century.
Providing a comprehensive picture of the entire reading curriculum in Victorian government schools over a period of almost two decades, the author demonstrates that, contrary to received wisdom, the Department of Education made every effort to integrate children of different backgrounds. Using three dimensions frequently cited in national identity theory - landscape, history, and mythology - readers are shown how material was chosen specifically to engage young white settler children and to help them overcome their sense of Australia as the 'other'.
National Identity and Education in Early Twentieth Century Australia not only brings about a clearer understanding of how Australia came to be 'Australian' in character, it establishes how curriculum content may be brought into the service of nation-building across the globe.
Price: $110.99
Pages: 176
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Imprint: Emerald Publishing Limited
Publication Date:
12 October 2018
ISBN: 9781787692466
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
Keane comes to conclusions about the emerging identity of new Australians that are contrary to much of what has been written about it in the past, emphasizing the role that the school curriculum played in molding loyalty to a new identity among young white Australians. She also argues that national identity can be a positive phenomenon when it harnesses the common experiences and achievements of people, and the unique and uplifting characteristics of their new home. It does not have to take the form of a wholesale rejection of the Other, she says, and so is quite different from the European experience of nationalism.
Jan Keane is an independent scholar based in the UK. She was born in Melbourne, Australia and holds post-graduate qualifications in TESOL, Children’s Literature, and a PhD in Education from the University of Nottingham, UK. Her early career lay in EFL and ESL, but she later developed an interest in the Australian identity as a consequence of living half her life in Australia and half in the UK. She has taught English at both secondary and tertiary levels, and has published extensively in ESL as co-author with the late Ken Cripwell of the Institute of Education, London, UK. Their books have been on the state curriculum in several Francophone countries.
Preface
PART 1: THE ROOTS OF AN AUSTRALIAN CHARACTER
Chapter 1. The Australian Identity Prior to Federation
Chapter 2. Education and Curriculum in Victorian State Schools
PART 2: IMAGINING A STAR-CROSSED LAND
Chapter 3. Inhabiting the Landscape
Chapter 4. Engaging with History
Chapter 5. Creating the Myth
PART 3: FROM EMPIRE TO NATION
Chapter 6. Towards a new discourse on identity
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix 1
Appendix 2