SOSE pedagogy for healthy communities

Abstract

Recent assertions by the Federal Education Minister and members of Federal and various State governments, including comments by various public commentators, have called for a renaissance of history teaching (Bishop, 2006), due in part to Prime Minister John Howard's comment that there is 'too much modernist junk in state curriculums' ('PM renews attack', SMH, 5 July 2006). The Australian History Summit held in Canberra in August 2006 and subsequent discussions in major Australian newspapers and within various interest groups have once again highlighted the increasing presence and control the federal government is attempting to wrest from the states in the matter of curriculum development, design and content. Similar examples of such imposition can be observed in the 1980s, when the then Commonwealth Minister for Education, John Dawkins, noted the need for 'fundamental change in schools, including a curriculum relevant to Australia's time and place in the world... the development of a common framework...complemented by a common national approach to assessment...[and] schools reporting to parents and the community' (Dawkins, 1988, pp. 4-5, as cited in Marsh, 2005, p. 156). Furthermore, Dr Brendan Nelson, Federal Education Minister for Education, Science and Training, (2001-2005) and now Julie Bishop, Federal Minister for Education, have also attempted to initiate a move towards a national education system. Much has been said to indicate that current standards in education, including curriculum documents, literacy and numeracy levels of students, pre-service teachers and teachers are far from nationally acceptable, both in terms of theory and practice, and indeed it seems the federal government sees the need to impose its own agenda onto the states. In this regard, the National Collaborative Curriculum Project (1988, as cited in Marsh, 2005) and the Agreed National Goals for Schooling in Australia (Australian Educational Council, 1989a as cited in Marsh 2005) developed eight national Key Learning Areas, including Studies of Society and Environment (SaSE). Yet despite this national approach to curriculum development and implementation, the states each made modifications to and/or deletions from the conceptual basis of SaSE. What follows is a discussion relating to the Queensland Studies of Society and Environment: Years 1 to 10 Syllabus (Queensland School Curriculum Council, 2000), in particular an overview of the strands, module planning, assessment planning, support material and various approaches to learning. This discussion is by no means exhaustive, and attempts to piece together a number of documents and texts that each deal with particular aspects ofSaSE in their own right