A Case Study of Teachers’ Work to Implement the Australian Curriculum: History

Abstract

In recent years Australian schools entered a period of significant curriculum change with the phased implementation of a national curriculum. This research focuses on the work of teachers as they enact the official curriculum; their role in curriculum change is critical (Brady & Kennedy, 2003; Clandinin & Connolly, 1990; Smith & Lovat, 2003). History was one of the subjects included in the first phase of the Australian curriculum development. Teachers’ understanding of the discipline, purpose and appropriate pedagogies is essential to student success in history (Taylor, 2008; Yilmaz, 2008). As an education officer working in curriculum support with history teachers across Queensland, a large state with considerable remote rural areas, I was interested in understanding the particular challenges of curriculum implementation for teachers in rural schools. The research reported in this thesis is a single-site educational case study that examines the experiences of one team of teachers as they planned for the implementation of the new curriculum, in the learning area of history, in a rural secondary school in Queensland. I locate my research at the intersection of four fields of inquiry: curriculum change, history curriculum, rural schooling and teachers’ work as mediators of the curriculum.