About

The project School knowledge, working knowledge and the knowing subject: a review of state curriculum policies 1975-2005 was funded as a Discovery Project by the Australian Research Council for 2007 and 2008, and was supplemented by further funding from the University of Melbourne through 2009.

In Australia, much of the analysis of curriculum policy has been concerned with particular reports, or with commonwealth developments, or with particular subject areas or the agendas of a single state. This project aimed to build a foundation picture of what had been happening across states over the past thirty years: in changes and continuities within as well as between the different states. It was interested in the changing approaches state curriculum policies have taken over this recent period to knowledge, to students, and to how academic and vocational agendas are marked out. The intention was to build an initial mapping and resource of what has been important in curriculum formulation around the different Australian states from 1975 to 2005. As a two-year project with a national scope, this was not intended to provide a detailed history of curriculum over that period. Rather the intention was to focus at 10 year intervals on the key documents, emphases and formulations evident to gain a sense of both changes over time and the differences and commonalities in values and approaches of the different Australian states to curriculum questions. For those interested in a more detailed account of the background, rationale, design and international and national theoretical context of the project, this can be accessed in Part E of the ARC application.

The project was led by Professor Lyn Yates and included contributions from Dr Cherry Collins, Dr Katie Wright, Dr Brenda Holt and Kate O’Connor. Key publications are listed below. On this website we include both the policy archive we developed and some additional resources which researchers may find helpful in digesting the material. These additional resources include:

• chronologies of curriculum policy by state
• lists of key curriculum policy and major education reports by state
• overview of all Commonwealth, state and territory governments and education ministers over the time period
• lists of curriculum-related Masters and Doctoral theses
• list of project publications