The Fallacy of Cultural Inclusion in Mainstream Education Discourses

Abstract

In Australian education discourses, Aboriginal peoples’ and Torres Strait Islanders’ socio-cultural perspectives are included in the national curriculum. This happens via curriculum content made palatable for a largely non-Indigenous population. As the focus of increasing Indigenous content remains a primary objective, power/knowledge process determines what knowledge is legitimate while relegating other perspectives to the periphery. In this chapter, we employ a poststructuralist framework through the lens of social justice to interrogate how teachers include Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander perspectives of Australian history. Aligning our discussions to the United Nations Sustainable Goal 4: Quality education, we present a triangulation of scholarly discussions, author reflections, and research data to explore how Australia’s education system assists learners in acquiring knowledge and skills required to promote a culture of human rights and cultural diversity. Interviews with history teachers and local Elders highlight a reliance on textbooks over trans-generational knowledge as the primary source for inclusive teaching. Despite increasing social and political pressure for reconciliation, constitutional recognition, treaty, and sovereignty, the inclusion of other cultural perspectives in textbooks remains largely absent. As teaching occurs from such monocultural education tools, cultural inclusion of Australia’s Indigenous peoples, cultures, histories, and perspectives will remain a fallacy within mainstream education discourses.

While Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander is the preferred and culturally responsive nomenclature when speaking about Australia’s First Nations peoples, being aware of the socio-political discourses, Indigenous has been used hereafter throughout the chapter