Coalition of the Uncertain: Classroom Responses to Debates about History Teaching

Abstract

Concern over the state of Australian history education has generated heated debate for over a year. Yet there have been glaringly absent voices in this very public argument: namely, the students and teachers who engage with this subject every day. Despite mounting anxiety about the state of Australian history teaching, there has been little discussion of how history teachers and students do history. This paper asks how students, teachers and curriculum officials make sense of a subject that constantly arouses so much public anxiety and unease.