The many voices of senior history curriculum enactment

Debate about the sort of history content and narratives that should be taught in schools is a common phenomenon the world over. Yet in these debates, the voices of the teachers who actually make decisions about the content that is selected from history curricula are often overlooked. This paper argues that the complexities of the curriculum enactment process and practices of senior secondary history teachers adds an important dimension to this broader, international debate. The research draws on a study which examined the curricular decision-making of Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) History teachers in a period of significant curriculum reform, namely the introduction of the new VCE History Study Design (VCAA, 2015). The study found that senior secondary history teachers both resist and are regulated by global, national and local discourses and policy contexts, but that critical influences on teachers’ decision-making include professional knowledge, student engagement and the high-stakes exam. As a result, teachers’ idealised philosophical and pedagogical purposes are sometimes compromised by the pragmatic realities of teaching in the twenty-first century.