Teaching Humanities and Social Science in Australia

The HASS curriculum in Australia essentially involves the Humanities and the Social Sciences. The study of the Humanities and the Social Sciences deals with the study of the society, and the visions and goals for the future development of the society.

Running head: TEACHING HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE IN AUSTRALIA
Teaching Humanities and Social Science in Australia
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1TEACHING HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE IN AUSTRALIA
The HASS curriculum in Australia essentially involves the Humanities and the
Social Sciences. The study of the Humanities and the Social Sciences deals with the study of
the society, and the visions and goals for the future development of the society. The goals and
the visions should aim to encourage the educators and the teachers to adapt to the increasing
knowledge and the understandings that the student should be gaining in the field of social
sciences. Most often these new knowledge and the learnings are added with the existing
curriculum and the syllabus. Thus there is a constant debate whether or not to incorporate the
humanities and the social sciences to the new curriculum. The Australian children and the
students should be receiving the knowledge of the foreign cultures and the countries, such as
the Asian countries and the specific thoughts of the Western schools. The Australian
Government has decided ultimately the need for the essential information and the
understandings that for the students and their curriculum. There are details of facts that need
to be learned at one end of the system and on the other end, there are wide interpretations that
need to be explored with essential specific facts. In the latest curriculum of Australia, the
term humanities and the Social Sciences encompass more than what it had earlier
incorporated. In accordance with the aspects of social, citizenship education, and civics, it
also does encompasses the knowledge of the subjects of Geography, History, Economics, and
Business. Also the curriculum in the primary teaching does involve the concepts of the
interdisciplinary as well as disciplinary thinking which is included in the document of HASS
F-6/7.
The potential outcome of the Australian Curriculum involves to teach the
students to be self-reliant and inventive individuals. They are also taught to become active
and informed citizens of the country. The three core dimensions of learning areas, cross-
cultural priorities as well as general capabilities help to organise the curriculum (Clark &
Ashton. 2015). The areas of learning involves the groups of subjects that are combined – for

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example, history, geography, economics, business as well as the civics and citizenship are
included in the subject of humanities and social sciences. The general skills include the wide-
ranging abilities and skills that are developed all throughout. It also includes numeracy,
literacy, ethical comprehension and innovative thinking. The histories and the culture of the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the relationship between Asia and Australia and
sustainability are the three cross-curriculum priorities that are mandatory in the learning
subjects.
According to the 2013 ACARA statement and the general skills present in the
Australian Curriculum it has been asserted that the Australian children should have the
capabilities to connect well with the others and have the ability to be self-reliant, managing
their own well-being. The students are also expected to be make the best choices about their
lives, act with the ethical honesty, being able to relate to the different cultures and
communicate with them. This is very important for the students to act responsibly in
different situations of global, local or regional importance. (ACARA, 2013).
By the phrase inquiry based learning, we mean a broad approach which involves the
quest for the truth, information or any kind of knowledge. It involves the duty of the
educators and the education systems. There are different kinds of inquiry processes which
eventually become central to the gaining of the knowledge and development of the truth in
different learning domains. The inquiry process guided by the teachers and the educators,
should be a constructive approach where the primary and the overall goal for the students
should be extracting meaning from the inquiries. The Australian Curriculum involves this
inquiry based learning process. The most predominant area where this has been incorporated
is the “Learning areas” of the Humanities and the Social Sciences. The inquiry-based learning
is vivid in the new Australian Humanities and Social Sciences curriculum and most
importantly in the primary school practices.

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The Australian Curriculum involves the syllabus on a yearly basis. The year 3
involves the Humanities and the Social Sciences that entails civics, citizenship, Geography
and History. The knowledge and the skills of the students are developed. There is eventual
improvement in their art of asking questions and researching, in their technique of evaluation,
and analysis of situations. They also learn to reflect and communicate. These skills are
applied in their daily learning experiences, and the students also effectively use these abilities
to investigate events relating to different historical and contemporary phenomenon. In the 4th
Year, the building on the understanding of civics and citizenship continues among the
students through the notions of self-governing values, responsibilities, rights and
contribution (Gobby & Walker, 2017). There is the exploration of the services that the local
government provides and its effective contribution to the public life. There is further
development of personal identity and the concepts of belonging, in order to make sure that
the encompassed laws are taken care of in the society. There is no commencement of the
subjects of Economics and Business until the 5th Year. The Mathematics curriculum of the 4th
Year encourages the Australian students to engage in concepts regarding the business and
economics, as well as the financial and the purchasing areas. The Mathematics curriculum of
the fourth year provides prospects for students to take part in concepts of economics and
business concepts, such as purchasing and financial literacy. (Epstein, & Peck, 2017).
In October 2010 the curriculum designers of Australia got ready to address the
concerns that were presented to them by the Australian Curriculum Coalition. The Australian
Curriculum designers included the education ministers. The Australian Curriculum Coalition
is a council of decision-making officers , presidents, and directors of executive who belong to
the national education associations. It also involves the teachers, school leaders, principals,
academics and education researchers. Kevin Donnelly was appointed by the Education
Minister Christopher Pyne, since she was an independent consultant of education, who would

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be able to bring a change in the Australian curriculum. Christopher Pyne also had appointed
Professor Ken Wiltshire who had the responsibility to evaluate the Curriculum of Australia in
January 2014. The Education Council, comprising all education ministers of Australia,
recognised the responses of the Australian Curriculum that had been reviewed by Donnelly
and Wiltshire in 2015 and prepared a new, current version of the Curriculum (Version 8.3).
There had been inclusion of few new concepts that the students were expected to learn in the
primary HASS. It included the instruction that the students of the third year should be
learning about Anzac Day, the information of First Fleet to the Year 4 students, and that the
Year 5 students should gain knowledge about Australian early settlers.
The Curriculum of Australia has incorporated the teaching of humanities and
social sciences. The learning process in Australia involves the two different but inter-related
areas. On one hand there is the facts and understanding of the subjects and on the other hand
is the inquiry of the skills. The skills are interweaved with the inquiry which throws a light
upon the inquiry aspect. This basically paves the way from the sequence of events which is
based on inquiry. There has been a controversy on the part of the Melbourne Declaration on
Educational Goals for Young Australians, whether to include the Humanities and the Social
Sciences in the Curriculum of Australia. They instead argue that the Australian education
system and the curriculum must include the national values of democracy which would
enable the student to develop the values of equity and justice. The students must be able to
participate in the civic life of Australia and be the responsible global and local citizens of the
country. The general abilities in the Australian Curriculum are likely to develop the attitudes
of the students. The teaching of values are not explicit in the curriculum of Australia. The
values are the responsibility of the state jurisdiction, and thus there is no explicit teachings of
these values in the curriculum. The different curriculum documents of the Australia contain
different rationale and in relation to these aims, there have been more knowledge and the

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understanding of the learning of the different places, people, and their cultures, all over the
world, irrespective of the time period, be it present or the past. In this context, the Humanities
and the Social Sciences curriculum involves the inquiry based learning process. This includes
the art of questioning, researching and the uses or reliable resources, evaluating assessing and
communicating the problems (Gobby & Walker, 2017).
The Australian Curriculum of the Humanities and the Social Sciences involve the
priorities of the cross cultures. The national curriculum documents involve the area of the
studies which aim at the benefit of the Australians as a whole. These cultures that are
included are that of Aboriginal or the First Nations people and their histories (Craven, 1996).
The students of the Australia would have the opportunity to learn about the cultures of the
Indigenous people. This would help them to acknowledge and respect the First Nations
people or the Torres Strait Islanders irrespective of their difference. The priority is also
included so that there is a reflection on the sustainability, in order to maintain the sustainable
patterns of living. The priority also involves development of relationship between Australia
and Asia so that the young students of Australia gain all the understanding and the knowledge
of the culturally different Australia.
The studies prove that there are sufficient differences between the Indigenous and the
non- Indigenous students of Australian. These gaps and the differences have been seen in the
areas of attendance, participation of events , numeracy, literacy of the group, retention,
completion and as well as during the process of enrolments in the courses. There are also cut
sin the funding of the indigenous studies in the universities. The School of Indigenous
Australian Studies at the James Cook University in Cairns also experiences reduction in the
funding of these courses. These differences between the First Nations People and the young
students of Australia demanded changes in the teaching practises of the schools and the
educational institutions. Since the Indigenous people are not that empowered, their literacy

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should be paid a greater attention to. The First Nations people should receive proper
education, in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences. Since there is no specific
difference between the language and the culture of the nations, they cannot be treated as a
separate entity. The teachers should have a proper understanding of the social and cultural
factors along with the linguistics so that they can work effectively at reducing the gap that
exists between the First Nations people and the people of Australia.
According to Gilbert & Hoepper (2016), these difference between the two different
groups of people date back to the ancient history. The subsequent growth of the law ,
education and parliamentary systems of the Anglican Australia was based on the Western
cultural convictions.. The First Nations People of Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales
were victims of colonialism in the hands of the British rule since they snatched away the
water and the land resources of these people that were essential for farming (Gilbert &
Hoepper, 2016). The colonialism had started affecting this group of the people and the impact
had contributed to the development of the creolization process between these Aboriginal
people and the English people. The Aboriginal people and the Torres Islanders have started
speaking the language of Kriol and Creole respectively. The areas where the colonisation left
a less impact, the people used to speak the language English. There occurred a linguistic
interchange. The Indigenous people who were speaking the language of the Indigenous tribes
learnt the language of English orally, and on the other hand the English people were greatly
manipulated by the traditional languages. There had been problems in the regions where the
First Nations people would be speaking something and the teachers would be interpreting
them differently. This called for a linguistic change.
The transformation from the old languages to the English took a lot of time to happen.
This change took a time period of four generations. According to Dilkes, Cunningham, &
Gray, (2014). From the perspective of the indigenous people, the change had been essential.

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The first generation of the people could speak only their traditional language, followed by the
second generation people who were capable of speaking both the English language and the
traditional language. The third generation people could speak only the English language, but
the fourth generation people by then could not even apprehend the traditional language, they
could only talk and speak the English language. In the past, the teachers of the educational
institutions did consider a student to be indifferent and rude, and he or she would have been
subjected to cultural discrimination. The cultural worldview can guide the educators to view
the individual learners on the basis of distinct conventions and values (Cunningham, 2007).
According to Craven, (1996), in the Australian context, it is very important to
understand and know about the intercultural values during the interaction with the Aboriginal
people and also with residents of Asia. The values and the characteristics of a person that
inspire the intercultural competencies involve curiosity, the act of caring for others, having
empathy, behaving responsibly, respecting the people with different cultures and greeting
them with an open mind. (Dilkes, Cunningham & Gray, 2014). The organising elements of
recognising the cultural differences and respecting them, having an empathy for them along
with effective interaction and reflecting on their experiences and taking the responsibility for
them help the students to develop the intercultural understanding. The abilityto understand
the different intercultural values is acknowledged at six different levels, where the Levels 1 to
4 are relevant particularly to the primary school teachers. On the other hand the levels 5 and 6
are relevant for students who have a developed a greater understanding of the intercultural
values.
The disciplinary as well as the interdisciplinary approaches to the studies have been
allowed by the recently established HASS F- 6.7 section of the Humanities and the Social
Science. The disciplinary concepts are the areas where the students would have an easy
access to the information and the different disciplines. On the other hand the interdisciplinary

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concepts involve significance and constant changes, the cause and the effect of the same.
Thus on an overall context, the inquiry and the understanding section includes the six
different approaches, which include asking questions, reflecting, analysing, having a proper
evaluation and researching of the topic, with proper communication with the people.
Taking the example of a lot number of cases, it can be found that the modern version
of the Australian Curriculum does not involve a lot of alteration in the planning of the
primary teachers. However the short term schools do follow the well-worn procedures. In
others, there is should be an endeavour to teach the subjects of History and Geography as a
discrete component. The subjects of Civics, Citizenship, Economics and Business should be
treated as extra cross curriculum priorities. This eventually would help the primary teachers
to be involved and have a better understanding of the skills and contexts involving history
and geography. Thus there should be possible changes and involvement of professional
development in such educational institutions. In accordance with this, the primary teachers
should also clarify the amount of time needed to be devoted to this. There should be a
calculation of time for the subjects of History and Geography, since these subjects need to be
taught separately and also time should be allocated to the subjects of cultural studies and
civics.

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Reference:
Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority (ACARA) (2013a). General
Capabilities in the Australian Curriculum. Sydney: ACARA. Retrieved from
www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/ f- 10- curriculum/ general- capabilities.
Clark, A., & Ashton, P. (Eds.). (2013). Australian History Now. Newsouth.
Craven, R. (Ed.). (1996). Teaching the Teachers: Indigenous Australian Studies for
Primary Pre-service Teacher Education: Model Core Subject Manual, a Resource of the
Teaching the Teachers Project, Indigenous Australian Studies for Teacher Education
Courses. School of Teacher Education, The University of New South Wales.
Cunningham, D. L. (2007). Understanding pedagogical reasoning in history teaching
through the case of cultivating historical empathy. Theory & Research in Social
Education, 35(4), 592-630.
Dilkes, J., Cunningham, C., & Gray, J. (2014). The new Australian curriculum,
teachers and change fatigue. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(11), 4.
Epstein, T., & Peck, C. L. (2017). Teaching and learning difficult histories in
international contexts: A critical sociocultural approach. Routledge.
Gilbert, R., & Hoepper, B. (2016). Teaching humanities and social sciences: history,
geography, economics & citizenship in the Australian curriculum. Cengage AU.
Gobby, B., & Walker, R. (Eds.). (2017). Powers of Curriculum: Sociological
Perspectives on Education. Oxford University Press.