Tuesday 17th June, 2025
Dear Centre Members, HDR Colleagues, and Allied members,
The Research Retreat held on Peek Whurrong Country, within the wider Eastern Maar/Gunditjmara Country in Warrnambool, south-western Victoria was a wonderful success. Over the three days we had 13 CRF members plus our Warrnambool colleagues enjoying the research community and spending productive research time. We decided that instead of calling it a research retreat…. that this event and others like it should be called a research ADVANCE! We retreat in order to advance research. So here is to our next one planned for next year.
This year we connected to Country and community with head, heart and hand, on foot, and in canoes. See below for some reflections, images and a bird’s eye view video of our canoe adventure on the Hopkins River – the border between the Peek Whurrong and Kirrae Whurrung peoples.
The winter solstice and the shortest day is coming up soon, as we head into a busy time of conferences and preparations for trimester 2 – while attempting to eke out our research outputs and project design. Stay warm and well.
Huge Shout Out to the Truth Telling author team (30 authors)… this was our first collaborative manuscript. Well led Glenn!
Truth-telling in the Australian Curriculum with authors – Glenn Auld, Aleryk Fricker, A. Bryan Fricker, Jessamy Gleeson, Genée Marks, Jo Raphael, Roy Rozario, Peta J. White, Brezshia Ashcroft, Robin A. Bellingham, Alessandra D’Arbe, Brianna Damcevski, Jennie Darcy, Kim Davies, Claudia Filipic, Brandi Fox, Paul Garner, Amanda Hall, Shelley Hannigan, Amrita Kamath, Katie Lee, Eun-ju Lee, Jing Leong, Catherine Milvain, Jonathan Newchurch, Alistair Noble, Joanne O’Mara, Jacqui Peters, Monika Wagner, Yinfeng Wang
Citation: Auld, G., Fricker, A., Fricker, A. B., Gleeson, J., Marks, G., Raphael, J., Rozario, R., White, P. J., Ashcroft, B., Bellingham, R. A., D’Arbe, A., Damcevski, B., Darcy, J., Davies, K., Filipic, C., Fox, B., Garner, P., Hall, A., Hannigan, S., … Wang, Y. (2025). Truth-telling in the Australian Curriculum. The Curriculum Journal, 00, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/curj.337
Abstract: Unlike Canada and South Africa, Australia has not completed a national Truth-telling of First Nations histories. As a consequence, the curriculum is at risk of excluding Truth-telling, leading to indoctrination of past injustices as part of school learning. Our analysis critically examines the use of Truth-telling language in the Australian Curriculum—Version 9. Eighteen Truth-telling terms were identified from a chapter on Truth-telling in the 2018 Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Using Bernstein’s strong and weak classification, instances of Truth-telling terms were identified in the curriculum. There were three instances of Truth-telling in the mandated Content Descriptors of discipline-based learning areas. Only one of these instances was in the primary years. Across the weak classification where teaching was optional, there were 31 instances in the Content Elaborations, one instance in the Cross-Curriculum Priority and no instances in the General Capabilities. And 16 of the 32 instances in the Content Elaborations were in secondary History which not all students study. With only weak classification of Truth-telling, students will continue to be indoctrinated into an unconscious learning of bias and erasure of First Nations histories. One way to limit the settler colonial violence in the Australian Curriculum is to mandate more Truth-telling to overcome what is perpetuating a Great Australian Silence.
Best wishes,
Peta and Jo