Consensus and division in Australian citizenship education

Abstract

Citizenship education has been pursued in Australia for nearly two decades. Following similar efforts in the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries, a national curriculum was prepared and implemented in the late 1990s, along with the production of educational materials and a program of professional development for teachers. The teaching of citizenship was widely supported but the initiative suffered from the divided jurisdiction over education in Australia. The curriculum was criticised by social educators for its narrow ambit, and caught up in arguments over the teaching of history. More fundamentally, it was subject to heated public debates over the nation's history that wer..