This empirical paper draws from the literature to review the inclusion of the Cross-Curriculum Priority (CCP), Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia, in the Australian Curriculum (for students aged 5 to 16 years), together with some of the challenges and opportunities Geography teachers face in planning to implement this CCP. Referred to as the Asia priority, it is one of the three CCPs in the tripartite design of the Australian Curriculum together with learning areas and general capabilities (GCs). Discussion focuses on the Asia priority as a contested form of knowledge in the current curriculum, and highlights some of the theoretical and epistemological issues concerned with knowing Asia, prior to examining the curricula implications for decision-making in teaching Geography. The paper argues that both discipline-specific knowledge offered by Geography, together with knowledge of contemporary issues such as highlighted by the Asia priority, are required to help young people to engage with their present world, as well as to prepare them to live in an increasingly complex world.
[Extract] The three-dimensional design of the Australian Curriculum includes the cross-curriculum priorities (CCPs), learning areas and general capabilities (GCs). While learning areas are deemed ‘what students need to know’, the GCs and CCPs indicate ‘what sort of people students ought to become’ (Lingard, 2018). This aligns with their rationale, articulated in the national narrative and aspirational goals of the Melbourne Declaration of Educational Goals for Young Australians (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs [MCEETYA], 2008). With the release of the latest iteration, the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Council of Australian Governments Education Council [COAGEC], 2019), it is timely to revisit the rationale and application of the CCPs.
Sustainability is an important cross-curriculum priority in Australian education that is not commonly realised in schools and classrooms. In this article, we discuss the challenges and opportunities to enacting sustainability, suggesting that both top-down (systemic schoolwide leadership and support) and bottom-up (individual educator’s reflexivity) support for sustainability is needed. We postulate that an action-oriented and transformative geography education may support the realisation of sustainable world views for learners, and we present a simple learning progression for action-oriented education, adapted from the Australian Curriculum: Humanities and Social Sciences, for achieving this aim. In this way, geography teachers may be empowered to embed sustainability in their day-to-day teaching.
