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R uth Reynolds
vi Contents
Chapter 3: Civics and Citizenship��99

What is Civics and Citizenship?�� 100
Civics and Citizenship in the Australian Curriculum�� 107
Key features of teaching Civics and Citizenship in the primary school�� 109
Key techniques for teaching Civics and Citizenship in the primary school�� 114
Chapter 4: Economics and Business�� 121

What is Economics and Business?�� 122
Economics and Business in the Australian Curriculum�� 128
Key features of teaching Economics and Business in the primary school�� 130
Key techniques for teaching Economics and Business in the primary
school�� 132
Chapter 5: Geography�� 144

What is Geography?�� 145
Geography in the Australian Curriculum�� 146
Key features of teaching Geography in the primary school�� 150
Key techniques for teaching Geography in the primary school�� 158
Chapter 6: History�� 179

What is History?�� 180
History in the Australian Curriculum��183
Key features of teaching History in the primary school�� 196
Key techniques for teaching History in the primary school��201
Chapter 7: Integrating Humanities and Social Sciences�� 216

What is an integrated curriculum?�� 217
Why integrate the curriculum?�� 217
How to integrate the curriculum�� 219
Humanities and Social Sciences-focused integration��222
How do I judge the quality of the integration?��223
Contents vii
Chapter 8: Global Education��225

What is global education?��226
Global education in the Australian Curriculum��229
Key features of teaching global education in the primary school��233
Key techniques for teaching global education in the primary school��236
Chapter 9: ICT��253
The use of ICT in Humanities and Social Sciences��254
Problems in implementation of ICT in classrooms��256
ICT as an object of study��258
ICT as a process of study��259
Chapter 10: Assessment in Humanities and Social Sciences�� 265

What is assessment?��266
The principles of effective assessment�� 267
Appendix: Children’s Literature and Web Resources�� 274
Bibliography��293
Index��322
viii
List of Figures
1.1 The continuum of essential Humanities and Social Sciences knowledge and
understandings��3
2.1 Active and informed citizenship in Humanities and Social Sciences��35
2.2 Graphic organiser: primary Humanities and Social Sciences��98
5.1 Mini unit of work: My Global Place�� 161
5.2 Graphic organiser: our global footprint��178
6.1 Exploring museum artefacts��207
6.2 Selecting appropriate objects to study��207
6.3 Graphic organiser: historical cause and effect��215
7.1 Starting with ideas��224
7.2 Starting with learners—VAK��224
7.3 Graphic organiser: integrating curriculum��224
9.1 Graphic organiser: issues of ICT in Humanities and Social Sciences��264
10.1 ARG sunrise diagram��268
10.2 An example of an action learning plan��270
10.3 Questions for self-assessment��271
10.4 Prompting questions for teachers��272
ix
List of Tables
2.1 Active and informed citizenship in primary Humanities and Social Sciences. Alignment
with Australian Curriculum capabilities��34
2.2 Primary Humanities and Social Sciences pedagogy: active and informed citizenship��35
2.3 Primary Humanities and Social Sciences pedagogy: visions and meanings��36
2.4 Primary Humanities and Social Sciences pedagogy: value laden��36
2.5 Primary Humanities and Social Sciences pedagogy: collaboration��37
2.6 Primary Humanities and Social Sciences pedagogy: communication��37
2.7 Primary Humanities and Social Sciences pedagogy: flexibility and creativity��38
2.8 Primary Humanities and Social Sciences pedagogy: reflective thinking��38
2.9 Primary Humanities and Social Sciences pedagogy: self-direction��39
2.10 Queensland Productive Pedagogies�� 44
2.11 NSW Quality Teaching Model�� 44
2.12 Unit planner: refugees��46
2.13 Lesson plan: value-laden inquiry into meaningful issues��48
2.14 Some inquiry approaches for primary school��53
2.15 Australian Curriculum skills of inquiry in Humanities and Social Sciences��55
2.16 Unit of work: Changing Technology, Changing Lives��56
2.17 Bloom’s Taxonomy, revised by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001)��83
2.18 Bloom’s activity: community heritage��84
2.19 Study of a cultural group: Asia, Year Level Stage 3��85
2.20 Question matrix (Weiderhold)��92
2.21 A reflective matrix��93
3.1 An overview of the Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship Years 3–6��107
4.1 An overview of the Australian Curriculum: Economics and Business Years 5 and 6��129
5.1 An overview of the Australian Curriculum: Geography�� 147
5.2 Primary Geographer grid (Haynes 2007)��155
5.3 School Excursion Risk Management Plan��159
6.1 A summary: historical literacy and primary classrooms��182
6.2 Early Years: historical skills and teaching ideas��185
x List of Tables
6.3 Historical concepts appropriate for learning about the past in the foundation stage
(Woodhouse 2005)��187
6.4 Time periods for learning about the past in the foundation stage (Woodhouse 2005)��188
6.5 Years 3 and 4: historical skills and teaching ideas��191
6.6 Years 5 and 6: historical skills and teaching ideas�� 194
7.1 Programming deficits��223
8.1 Key components of global citizenship��235
8.2 Starting with a syllabus document—opportunities to implement global
awareness��238
8.3 Starting with global awareness idea��239
8.4 De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats��246
8.5 Comparison between global and Australian values (Bliss 2005)��247
8.6 An overview of values and pedagogical strategies to teach about, for and with global
education—a global stance��248
10.1 A simple learning rubric��269
10.2 Individual checklist of work skills attained��269
10.3 Assessment rubric for a continuum of quality��271
10.4 Planning rubric for group skills��272
xi
About the Authors

Associate Professor Ruth Reynolds has twenty years of classroom experience in primary schools and
now works in teacher education teaching History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship, and Business and
Economics education. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in how to teach in these
areas in primary school, and has a number of postgraduate students. She is team leader of the Global
Education Research and Teaching Team (GERT) at the University of Newcastle, which focuses on teaching
global education across disciplinary areas and on researching the success of their various initiatives.
This group has to date earned over $100,000 in research funding. Professor Reynolds is former Chair
of the University of Newcastle primary teacher education programs of all three campuses (Ourimbah,
Newcastle and Port Macquarie) and has also held leadership positions as Program Convenor of the M.
Teaching (Primary); coordinator of the B. Teach/BA (Primary) program; former Deputy Head of School
and Assistant Dean of Education. A former President of the Social Educators’ Association of Australia,
and member of the editorial committee of The Social Educator, Professor Reynolds is also a member of
the International Assembly of the National Council of the Social Studies in the USA, the Geographical
Association and the Historical Association in the United Kingdom, the International Peace Research
Association and the Australian Curriculum Studies Association. She was awarded an International
Understanding Grant from the National Council for the Social Studies in 2010. She was a guest editor
for Educational Sciences (Basel) with a special edition on Global Citizenship in 2012 and she is currently
editor of the US-based Journal of International Social Studies. In 2013 she was awarded an Australian
Award for University teaching with a citation for ‘Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning’ for
contribution to the Humanities and Social Sciences area of the curriculum. She is an author of sixteen
books for teacher education and school-based practitioners.
Dr Wendy Hanlen is a linguist with a background in Aboriginal languages and Aboriginal English in
the fields of education and the law. Wendy has been a lecturer at the University of Newcastle and
other universities in New South Wales. She has conducted multidisciplinary research nationally and
particularly in New South Wales in the field of Indigenous education. Wendy has published nationally
and internationally and provided flexible curricula for registered training organisations (RTOs) around
Australia and has been an academic partner with the NSW Department of Education on a number of
projects in addition to being an independent consultant to the NSW Department of Education and the
NSW Judicial Commission.
xii
Acknowledgments
The author and the publisher wish to thank the following copyright holders for reproduction of their
material.
Cover: Stocksy/Simon Oxley
Extract from ‘Education for Active Citizenship’ Senate Standing Committee on Employment,
Education and Training, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1989, 101; Extract
from ‘National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools,’ Department of Education,
Science and Training (DEST), Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2005, www.valueseducation.
edu.au/verve/_resources/Framework_PDF_version_for_the_web.pdf, 128; Extract, ‘It’s never too
early: Why economics education in the elementary classroom’ by B. Meszaros, Social Studies and the
Young Learner, 2010, 130; Newcastle Herald/Fairfax Syndication, 204 (middle left)/Anita Jones/Fairfax
Syndication, 201/Dean Osland/ Fairfax Syndication, 204 (bottom right); Courtesy Newcastle Regional
Library: 019000198, 204 (top right)/163000194, 204 (middle right)/047000016 Edwards Collection, 204
(bottom left)/001002420 Snowball Collection, 204 (top left); Extract from ‘Quality Matters (Ramsey
Report)’ Sydney: New South Wales Department of Education and Training (DET), 2000, www.det.nsw.
edu.au/teachrev/reports/reports.pdf, 42; Extract, ‘Global Citizenship: A Typology for Distinguishing
its Multiple Conceptions’, by L. Oxley & P. Morris, 2013, 235; Extract from USAID (Carla Kopell), 154.
Every effort has been made to trace the original source of copyright material contained in this book.
The publisher will be pleased to hear from copyright holders to rectify any errors or omissions.
The authors would also like to thank the following people:
• Peter Jay for graphic organisers and design support and suggestions.
• David Arnold, the manager of the Education section of the Australian National Museum of
Australia, and the museum staff generally for the photos on page 207 and for the explanation of
the value of museums in teaching SOSE.
• Maggie Catterall and the students of St Monica’s Primary School, Footscray, Melbourne for the
teaching ideas on page 48.
• Students from the University of Newcastle who provided ideas, including resources, for this text.
In particular:
• Alison Purdon for Freddy Forgetful’s unforgettable trip around Australia on page 168.
• Melissa Dobbins, Amylee Merchant and Hannah Moriarty for the unit of work, Changing
Technology, Changing Lives on pages 56–79.
• Kimberley Fyffe for her lesson plan, Refugees on pages 48–50.
• Jenny Crain for her Asia Matrix on pages 85–6.
• Debbie Campbell for ideas of children’s literature books and resources.
If anyone feels that they have not been acknowledged, please let us know.
xiii
Introduction
Why Humanities and Social Sciences?
This text provides the preservice teacher and practising teachers in the primary Humanities
and Social Sciences area of the curriculum with an overview of the essential tools to teach well
in this area. The previous two versions of this text (Teaching Studies of Society and Environment
in the Primary School, 2009; and Teaching History, Geography and SOSE in the Primary School,
2012) appeared at different stages of the ongoing turbulent period of curriculum debate
associated with the Australian Curriculum, and although much of what was written in these
texts still stands as good practice in the field it is important that primary student teachers
and practising primary teachers are aware of, and begin to grapple with, the issues that are
arising as this new curriculum area unfolds in primary schools. The Australian Curriculum
Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has already developed areas of study for the
primary school for History and Geography. Civics and Citizenship, along with Economics and
Business, are complete and available, although subject to final approval. The Australian
Curriculum will be a statement of knowledge and understandings and skills, but it is ACARA’s
intention that the school systems, schools and teachers will implement it in the ways they see
as most appropriate—the pedagogy will be left to the schools (ACARA 2010b). In a number
of states an integrated Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) approach, incorporating
many aspects of the previous approaches used, will undoubtedly continue. In other states,
which have stronger foundations for teaching History and Geography as separate disciplines,
schools will be encouraged to teach these areas separately in some instances and in an
integrated manner at other times. In any case, the period for implementation will stretch
over a number of years, and this will vary in different states, and so in this interregnum
period it is to be expected that a number of different variations of ‘social studies’ or ‘social
education’ will be taught. In this text an amalgam of these approaches will be used in an
attempt to best assist future primary teachers to be prepared for a changing context.
The fact that the Australian Curriculum has unfolded in three parts over a period of
years, with parts of the previous SOSE area evident in all three parts, is only the beginning
of the quandary for primary teachers who will be implementing, and will need to learn
new ways of doing things, in all areas of the curriculum. Primary teachers are developing
their understanding of the separate curriculum areas while working to integrate across
curriculum areas as much as possible, in order to meaningfully manage their school
day. The author continues to see the Humanities and Social Sciences as one unique area
of the curriculum that focuses specifically on enhancing active citizenship with an inquiry
emphasis, and maintains that by keeping this focus in the forefront student teachers can
better make sense of such constant change. The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals
for Young Australians [Melbourne Declaration] (Ministerial Council on Education, Training
and Youth Affairs [MCEETYA] 2008) established two key goals for Australian schooling,
one of which specifically asserted that active and informed citizenship is a key endeavour
xiv Introduction
for schooling. Although many areas of the curriculum can assist this goal, the Humanities
and Social Sciences area has this as its foremost objective and so it is active and informed
citizenship that binds the area.
The Australian Curriculum

The national Australian Curriculum currently being developed emerged from discussions
around the competitiveness of Australian schooling on the world stage. There was seen to
be a need to perform better in international tests of Science and Maths in order to increase
economic productivity, with achievement in the PISA tests of great importance (Cranston,
Kimber, Mulford, Reid and Keating 2010; Reid 2007). Additionally, complaints from then Prime
Minister, John Howard, that Australians did not know sufficient and accurate Australian
history led to increased scrutiny of that area of the curriculum (Christenson 2007). In 2008
the various state Ministers of Education met to endorse the Melbourne Declaration as the
guide for the future of Australian school education, with the view that there should be some
attempts made to enhance curriculum uniformity across the various states of Australia.
There were four key reasons given for the need for such a unified national curriculum. Two of
them were associated with resources. Instead of all the different states developing their own
resources to apply to their specific syllabus documents, a uniform Australian curriculum
could allow the pooling of these materials, as well as the people resources that provide
professional development for teachers in these areas. Third, it was seen that a national
Australian Curriculum was helpful for students who move to another state because they do
not have to address different syllabus expectations. Last, it was seen as essential that all
curriculums should address globalisation in content and skills (particularly information and
communication technologies) and to do this together, rather than as separate entities, would
be appropriate (ACARA 2010c).
The Melbourne Declaration established two key goals for Australian schooling. These
were:
1. Australian schooling promotes equity and excellence.
2. All young Australians become successful learners, confident and creative individuals,
and active and informed citizens.
These two goals were to set the guidelines for the national curriculum development
process, which initially had a limited scope (four discipline areas only), but later grew to
address the full school curriculum in the name of establishing a viable curriculum model for
schools to follow. In 2009 the Interim National Curriculum Board (NCB) developed Shaping
Papers to guide the consultation process in four areas of the curriculum in Foundation to
Year 10 (F–10)—English, Science, Mathematics and History. Key academics were used to
inform the direction of these four areas and to establish these Shaping Papers for wider
consultation. With the assistance of various advisers and with a number of wider community
consultation meetings, key discipline academic leaders led the development of the Shaping
Papers. In the History area this was Professor Stuart Macintyre from the University of
Melbourne. Framing papers were prepared and from them curriculum writers were set to
Introduction xv
work to provide some syllabus guidelines, guided by a new board, the Australian Curriculum,
Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), which was set up in 2009. The process of
implementation has been different in the different states.
The Australian Curriculum: English was built around three interrelated strands—language,
literature and literacy. The Australian Curriculum: History aimed to support knowledge
and understanding of the past for students to appreciate their own and others’ cultures,
to understand the present and to contribute to debate about the future. The Australian
Curriculum: Mathematics had as its goal to educate students to ‘be active thinking citizens
interpreting the world mathematically, and using mathematics to make predictions and
decisions about personal and financial priorities’. The aim of the Australian Curriculum:
Science was to enable solid foundations in science knowledge, understandings, skills and
values so as to enhance lifelong learning (NCB 2009a).
It was also expected that general capabilities and perspectives be incorporated into all
curriculum areas. The ten general capabilities were literacy, numeracy, information and
communication technology (ICT), thinking skills, creativity, self-management, teamwork,
intercultural understanding, ethical behaviour and social competence. As of October 2010
these were reduced to seven, these being literacy, numeracy, ICT competence, critical
and creative thinking, ethical behaviour, personal and social competence and intercultural
understanding (McGaw 2010). The three perspectives, also to be incorporated within all
curriculum areas, were Indigenous perspectives, so all Australian students could ‘learn
about, acknowledge and respect the history and culture of Aboriginal people and Torres
Strait Islanders’; a commitment to sustainable patterns of living; and skills, knowledge and
understandings related to Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia (NCB 2009a).
Since the original announcements, further phases of curriculum development have been
announced. Curriculum documents have been developed in Geography F–10 and some of
the upper secondary areas. Although not finally approved at the time of publication, F–10
curriculum has been finalised in the Arts; Health and Physical Education; Technologies;
Economics and Business Studies; and Civics and Citizenship, and was ready for final
approval at the time of writing. Curriculums in Languages, and Work Studies continue to be
addressed. Additionally, there continues to be discussions around the three perspectives
and around the capabilities. Thus this book and its focus can be seen against a background
of complex change.
Why do we need this book?

This text provides an overview of how to teach in the Humanities and Social Sciences area of
the curriculum in primary school. Because of current changes to the Australian Curriculum
there is a need to update our teaching in this area (see above). However, this book is not
simply a guide to teaching the Australian Curriculum. It provides a critical view of curriculum
and pedagogy in this area of study with the understanding that teachers are reflective
professionals and must make professional decisions as to the priorities and emphases of
their teaching approaches in the context in which they find themselves. As such it is intended
xvi Introduction
to provide a guide to what is expected in the national curriculum statements in this area with
a view to adding to this with ideas for teaching practice as well as researched theoretical
underpinnings.
This book develops a compressed overview of the theoretical background for the field
of study and explains what this means for how and why it should be taught. The integrated
nature of the primary school context means that the ‘big ideas’ and participatory approaches
of the Humanities and Social Sciences, whether they be in History, Geography, Civics and
Citizenship or Economics and Business, can often be approached in different ways by
primary school teachers as opposed to our secondary colleagues. Studies in this area can be
included more easily throughout the curriculum and everyday events of classroom practice.
This book provides guidance for this integrated, values-laden inquiry approach to learning
about our own society with a view to enabling active and informed citizenship.
Readers of this book are presented with a holistic presentation of the disciplines in the
Humanities and Social Sciences in primary school; their links, philosophical underpinnings,
relevant international debate and policies, classroom strategies and guidelines. This
book captures the broad debates in social education from academic, policymaker and
teacher perspectives internationally and within Australia. In so doing it seeks to explain
developments from a grand philosophical perspective, often contested, to actual models
of classroom practice (also often contested). Between the classroom practitioner and the
academic discipline theorist comes layers of policy from various Commonwealth boards
and departments of education—all of which mediate what is to be taught. This book tries to
clarify this broader context of classroom practice as we increasingly live in an interconnected
world. The book also clarifies important developments in pedagogy and their implications
for social education. What is taught is often mediated by how it is taught.
The strong connection between what is taught and how it is taught has significant
intellectual implications. Both disciplines of History and Geography have been modified by
primary-focused pedagogical styles, but can still be taught in unique Humanities and Social
Sciences ways, in a manner that encompasses the overriding conceptual underpinnings of
the discipline area. Cross-disciplinary approaches, such as cultural studies or focuses on
children’s literature for sustainability, provide alternative conceptual views on society and
on how to approach relevant disciplines to methodologies taken in many secondary schools.
This is one of the great joys of being a primary school teacher—the innovative capacity to link
multiple disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives in meaningful ways for students.
This book also seeks to address a range of conflicting issues that have plagued social
education. What is the balance to be struck in cultural education—universal understanding
or local distinctiveness? Is Geography a safer integrative discipline than the more suggestive
ecologically sustainable development studies? How does one teach religion in a time of
religious divisiveness? What is the best way to educate for citizenship? How do primary
teachers participate in educating for future vocational education? How does how we teach
influence what we teach and vice versa? Why is the distinctive pedagogy of the primary
school important?
Introduction xvii
In recent times in Australia the Humanities and Social Sciences area of study has been
a hotly contested area of the curriculum. Within it there has been debate about whether
History and, to a lesser extent, Geography, should take a stronger focus. The debate seems
centred around whether the study should be focused on the discipline area as opposed
to an interdisciplinary approach. Should we teach History or should we teach change
and continuity? Should we teach Geography or should we teach ecological sustainable
development? Is there a lot of difference between these approaches? Some historians seem
to believe that primary teachers cannot teach history properly and so everything taught in
primary school needs to be revisited in secondary school. If it is not done well, then why do
it at all? However, historical and geographical perspectives to culture, resources and civics
would seem to be crucial. Not providing these perspectives until secondary school deprives
young people of crucial understandings. Teaching History and Geography without cultures,
civics, resources and Indigenous studies is both difficult and restrictive. An integrated
approach using the knowledge and conceptual understandings of a number of discipline and
interdisciplinary areas better fits the primary situation.
The other area of contestation involves the strategies, skills and values of the area of
study. Primary practitioners would see this as the active citizenship area, with values both as
an area of study and an approach to study and inquiry learning in authentic situations driving
the themes chosen. Thus, as an area of study it can drive the entire curriculum. However,
the focus in primary schools is often seen as being literacy, with the other learning areas
often being handmaidens to literacy and, to a lesser extent, numeracy. This is an inadequate
view of education for future citizens. We can teach about society in reading lessons. While
focusing on phonics we can also be addressing human rights. If we are truly educating
learners they must be aware of why they are learning to read. They must have a reason to
read and write and talk and listen. The Humanities and Social Sciences provide an avenue to
such authentic learning. They motivate learners, they are enjoyable, and they put learners’
worlds in context. History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship education and Economics and
Business education can thus provide the focus for learning in many other areas, including
the teaching of literacy. They give students a reason to learn and provide important skills of
national significance.
How to read this book

This text aims to assist the reader to consider why they teach as they do and to reflect on
what makes good classroom practice in this area of study. The theoretical and research-
based practice perspectives are intended to enable primary teachers to better decide upon
priorities between the often conflicting demands in this area of study. The area of study has
a potentially huge content background, and an array of exciting avenues to explore. How
does a teacher decide? An understanding of the area of study based on its theoretical basis
and the pedagogy of the field helps enable strategic planning for primary teachers. With
practical examples, school-based practice and research-focused understandings providing
the ‘big picture ideas’, preservice teachers as well as practising classroom teachers will gain
a broad understanding of what happens in good Humanities and Social Sciences teaching
xviii Introduction
experiences. The crucial importance of providing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
content in all areas of Humanities and Social Sciences is recognised by the incorporation of
ideas for this throughout the chapters by Dr Wendy Hanlen. In addition the cross-curriculum
perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (ATSI), Sustainability and Asia
are addressed as separate components in the pedagogy-focused chapters.
The book provides an overview of the area of study as it now stands in the Australian
Curriculum (Chapter 1: Humanities and Social Sciences in the Australian Curriculum) and
then focuses on the unique pedagogy of the area (Chapter 2: Inquiry Pedagogy), providing
some context for the individual curriculum documents to be understood within the learning
area. The inquiry-based pedagogy of the Humanities and Social Sciences focuses on the active
and informed citizenship focus as its centre, with visions and meanings and values-laden
issues defining how decisions will be made about what content is chosen. Teaching strategies
that emphasise flexibility and creativity, self-direction, collaboration, communication and
reflective thinking are incorporated into the way it is taught. In the ensuing chapters these
themes are further expanded upon with examples.
The next four chapters address each of the Australian Curriculum areas in alphabetical
order (Chapter 3: Civics and Citizenship; Chapter 4: Economics and Business; Chapter 5:
Geography; and Chapter 6: History) to clarify how each curriculum area is conceptualised
internationally and describe some of the key issues for the individual areas. The chapters all
clarify the area of study and teaching as it has been conceived in the Australian Curriculum,
identify key features that are specifically associated with the primary context, and then
provide key teaching techniques for the primary area of schooling.
Chapters 7 to 10 address features that link the four curriculum documents in the
Humanities and Social Sciences area of study. Chapter 7 (Integrating Humanities and Social
Sciences) provides some theoretical and philosophical perspectives on the various ways
in which integration can take place. Chapter 8 (Global Education) provides a wide range
of approaches to integration not only across the Humanities and Social Sciences area
but across all areas of the curriculum with a global perspective in mind. Chapter 9 (ICT)
provides an overview of current ICT-related trends in the area, and Chapter 10 (Assessment
in Humanities and Social Sciences) presents some key principles for assessment. The book
concludes with an Appendix (Children’s Literature and Web Resources) which captures
some key resources and teaching ideas of value to teachers in this area.
All chapters incorporate literacy strategies that enhance the Humanities and Social
Sciences conceptual understandings, opportunities for critical reflection, and examples
from real-life school and educational institutions. Valuable insights as to how to incorporate
the three Australian Curriculum perspectives as well as the capabilities are included in all
chapters. I hope that you find this text of value for implementing exciting and motivating
approaches to the study of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Humanities and Social
1
Sciences in the Australian
Curriculum
The Humanities and Social Sciences encompass aspects of social, civics and citizenship education,
originally subsumed under the term SOSE or HSIE (in New South Wales) but now, in the 2010
national curriculum, organised in a different manner. In the latest iteration of the Australian
Curriculum the term Humanities and Social Sciences encompasses studies of History, Geography,
Civics and Citizenship and Economics and Business. SOSE and HSIE are not acknowledged in the
national curriculum, but in the period of transition that we are working through at the moment they
are expected to linger in many school systems.
Research into Humanities and Social Sciences indicates that this area of study is a negotiation of the
relative weight given to the encouragement of either social commitment or social comprehension,
achieved through the aims of citizenship or scholarship (Johnston 1989).
Classroom approaches to the Humanities and Social Sciences have inquiry approaches as the
centre point of the area of study and there is an emphasis on problem solving. It is often referred
to as the citizenship area of the curriculum. There is also an emphasis on developing national and
global identity through the content areas, particularly through historical and geographical studies.
This chapter:
• establishes the area of study in the Australian Curriculum in its historical context
• describes the individual contributions of History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship, Economics
and Business and the cross-curriculum capabilities and perspectives in the Australian
Curriculum and how they relate to active and informed citizenship.
2 Teaching Humanities and Social Sciences in the Primary School
What is this area in the Australian Curriculum?

The new national Australian Curriculum has established a number of separate areas that under previous
state curriculum documents were categorised as SOSE (Studies of Society and Environment) or HSIE
(in New South Wales, standing for Human Society and Its Environment). The SOSE label originated
from the national mapping activity of 1991 that mapped what was being taught in areas of study in
Environmental Education and Studies of Society across Australia. Across the world this area of study
has been referred to as social studies, studies of society or citizenship education. Typically it includes
the study of disciplines such as history, geography, sociology and economics; cross-disciplinary areas
such as Aboriginal studies, environmental studies, religious studies, peace studies, Asian studies; and
some integrated studies such as civics and citizenship education, social studies and Australian studies.
There is thus no SOSE area in the new curriculum, but as it has always been an integrated study
it still exists as long as teachers continue to teach in that manner. The Australian Curriculum and
Reporting Authority (ACARA), which was established in 2008, has developed curriculum documents
in Civics and Citizenship and Economics and Business education, and incorporates the ‘capabilities’
to develop intercultural understanding, ethical behaviour, and personal and social competence. Along
with ‘perspectives’ of Indigenous history and culture, sustainable patterns of living and engagement
with Asia—all areas which have had a strong SOSE focus in previous national and state curriculum
documents—these separate areas essentially make up the Humanities and Social Sciences area of the
curriculum.
Internationally, this area of the curriculum is variously referred to as Studies of Society and
Environment, Human Society and Its Environment, social science, social studies, new social studies,
teaching about society, the study of society, citizenship education and civics, and now in the Australian
Curriculum it will be called Humanities and Social Sciences. Some see these areas of study as a
collection of similar or related subjects such as history, geography, civics and economics, while others
see them as elements of an integrated field of study. Primary and secondary areas of schooling often use
different terminology. Definitions, however, have tended to focus on the intentions of the study rather
than the discipline area from which it arose, at least in the primary school.
There has always been difficulty in definitively establishing the purposes and parameters of the
social studies area and despite studies by researchers such as Engle (1960), Barr, Barth and Shermis
(1977) and Shaver (1982, 1987) in the United States, and Johnston (1989), Reynolds (1999) and Kennedy
(2001b) in Australia, it continues to elicit scrutiny. Divisions between the cultural traditions approach
(passing on of important traditions from our past), including civics education; and the critical
evaluation and decision-making approach (working to transform our society), which could be seen as
an active citizenship approach, are still apparent in Australia. Johnston argued that the evolution of
what he calls the social studies area of study was the recurrent negotiation of the relative weight given
to the encouragement of either social commitment or social comprehension, achieved through the
aims of citizenship or scholarship (Johnston 1989). There are, however, some fundamental knowledges,
processes and values that underpin this area and have some long-standing validity.
The knowledge and understandings of Humanities

and Social Sciences
The Humanities and Social Sciences involves studying our own society, and visions for future societies
encourage educators to continually reconsider and adapt knowledge and understandings that students
should gain in this learning area. In many cases, however, these new learnings are simply added to the
Chapter 1: Humanities and Social Sciences in the Australian Curriculum 3
FACTS CONCEPTS
Bits of knowledge too important to General understandings supported by a
leave out of a student’s education variety of groups of facts chosen for their
relevance and illustrative potential
Figure 1.1 The continuum of essential Humanities and Social Sciences knowledge and understandings
existing learnings, leading curriculum developers to engage in endless debates as to which knowledge is
of more worth. This is why we have curriculum debates as to whether we need to teach about particular
Asian countries or particular Western schools of thought.
An alternative approach is where the curriculum is developed around key concepts or
understandings, and there is some discretion given to teachers and students to use a variety of suitable
pieces of knowledge or facts to explore these concepts. If, for example, syllabus writers established
that social justice as a global issue be investigated then one example of that could be the refugee issue
in Australia, along with many other examples. This approach assumes that there are a variety of facts
that are of equal value in exploring an issue and there is no need to mandate any particular set of
them. Of course, the danger with the latter approach is that some students may cover similar content in
subsequent years, even if they address a different concept or ‘big idea’.
This then establishes the two ends of a continuum when establishing what knowledge and
understandings are essential for the Humanities and Social Sciences area of the curriculum. At the one
end there are facts and groups of facts required to be learnt and at the other there are broad conceptions
to be explored with potentially no particular facts more important than any other.
The processes of Humanities and Social Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences learners are guided by futures thinking in that the area of study is
crucial to better understand and influence society of the future by understanding society of the present
and past. Humanities and Social Sciences learners need to be self-directed. They need to be flexible and
creative. They need to be collaborative. They need to have complex thinking skills and be reflective of
their learning. They also need to have some vision of their role in the world and so be able to apply their
skills to something meaningful for them and others (ACDE 2001; Bentley 1998; Hicks 1996; Kennedy
2001b; Spender 2001; Townsend 2001).
The inquiry process, a process strongly identified with Humanities and Social Sciences, promotes
all of these desired skills. There are explanations of the inquiry process in most social studies/social
science textbooks (Buchanan 2013; Hoepper and Gilbert 2013; Marsh and Hart 2011; Taylor et al.
2012) with the essential tenets being that there is a sequence of activities to guide students through
a meaningful social investigation. Although there are a number of different ways of classifying this
sequence, it basically revolves around a progression of framing and focusing questions; locating,
organising and analysing evidence; evaluating, synthesising and reporting conclusions; possibly taking
action of some sort; and reconsidering consequences and outcomes of each of the above phases (Gordon
2000; Hamston and Murdoch 1996; Naylor 2000). As Naylor (2000) pointed out, the inquiry process
depends upon a view that students are to be strongly involved in the learning process and they actively
construct meaning, negotiate all aspects of learning, frame questions to be answered, learn in a social
context and can be involved in taking some kind of action.
4 Teaching Humanities and Social Sciences in the Primary School
The Humanities and Social Sciences area requires skills of participation. Students have to be
connected to their community if this area is to assist them in future learning (Arthur and Bailey 2000;
Cumming and Carbines 1997). Holden and Clough (1998) pointed out that children are interested and
concerned about issues such as environmental destruction, crime and violence and they would like
to work towards effective changes to their society. There are also significant benefits for society in
developing such competent citizens. Holden and Clough argued that active participation is dependent
on the value that teachers place on this type of participation. It requires more than an ‘in class’ romp
through a textbook. Competencies in participation must be developed if it is to be effective. Hart argued
that children should work alongside adults in school and community projects and there is a hierarchy
of participation skills that can be developed (Hart 1992).
The development of critical social understanding, and an ability to put into action the findings of
student investigation, are also critical (Gilbert 2001; Hoepper 1999). Issues-based education has a long
history in the social studies (Evans and Saxe 1996), but critical theorists argue for a critical perspective
on all knowledge, arguing that economic interests have shaped the interests of many aspects of society,
including education, and that active citizens need to question and redress this (Hursh and Ross 2000).
Forms of action for school students can be congruent with societal views of appropriate societal action
and need not be extremist.
The values of Humanities and Social Sciences

Values underpin all of what we do in Humanities and Social Sciences. They influence what we teach,
how we teach and they are an object of discussion in our teaching. At the hub of schooling are the
values that influence our intellectual, physical, social, moral and aesthetic development. Aspin (2002,
p. 13) argued that individual judgments and activities are ‘determined at the level of the culture of a
community’. Community values give human beings their most fundamental conception of the meaning
of life. Ghaye and Lillyman (2000) refer to action as ‘values in use’ encapsulating the holistic influence
of values on our interactions with others. In other words, all our actions are influenced by our values.
Values are the estimation of worth, priority or significance of some object, feeling or idea (adapted
from Hill 1994). Halstead and Taylor (2000, cited in DEST 2003a, p. 2) define them as ‘the principles and
fundamental convictions which act as general guides to behaviour, the standards by which particular
actions are judged as good or desirable’. Values are regarded as stable guides to our behaviour and
decisions and are seen to be quite enduring, formed under the influence of parents and community,
knowledge, experience and peers. Values are embedded and embodied in everything we think and
every action we take (Aspin 2002). Attitudes and behaviour are indicative of particular values, but
are not necessarily good indicators of the fundamental values inherent when performing a particular
action because people are not necessarily consistent in linking all their actions to their own underlying
values and it is not always clear just what values prompt certain behaviours (Cox and Alexander 2005).
Activity
The Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ (Matthew 7: 12).
This rule is enacted in many societies and cultures. Find out how it is expressed in a culture other than your
own. Why would this be such an all-pervading rule? Establish some specific class rules based on this Golden
Rule. Do you need other class rules or is this sufficient for a cohesive classroom?
Chapter 1: Humanities and Social Sciences in the Australian Curriculum 5
Additionally, the literature in the area identifies a dichotomy between moral decisions and decisions
that are based on societal conventions. There are instances when moral decisions are not necessarily
conventional decisions, with a morally bad action being one that, even if there were no rule against
it, would still be considered wrong. That is, moral laws are those that are unalterable, non-contingent,
are generally acceptable and serious, whereas societal decisions are dependent on the society (Keefer
2006). However, the complexity that this dichotomy suggests can be even more convoluted with many
of our moral judgments dependent on community and relationship contexts. For example, Tan and
Chew query whether the five guiding values of the Singaporean Civics and Moral Education (CME)
curriculum, of which one key value is that of nation before community and society before self, could be
said to be morally contentious in some instances, creating inner tensions within the citizen as to which
moral code should be adopted and when (Tan and Chew 2004).
Reflecting on values
Can you think of a societal rule that may be a contradiction to a moral law?
However, it is assumed that establishing socially acceptable values is a starting point for a
functioning society and that there can be some values that are crucial for both the individual and
the state. For example, valuing honesty is a better start to establishing a cohesive community than
valuing dishonesty, and so the question arises: How can we teach what our society and our community
consider to be appropriate values?
As Gilbert and Hoepper (2001) pointed out, schools cannot avoid values, and pupils and parents
believe schools have a responsibility to promote values even if they are unsure exactly what they should
be. Values are not easily observed by researchers and the community at large, and formal education
appears to emphasise cognitive processes, with outcomes-based assessment emphasising behavioural
objectives achieved by using these cognitive processes. In most states in Australia values are not
assessed and they are not explicit in the Australian Curriculum. The plurality of our society leads to
difficulties in deciding upon appropriate values and teaching strategies. In recent times there has been
an acknowledgment of the deficit of explicit values teaching in schools, or perhaps an acknowledgment
of the values that are apparent although not recognised in our classrooms, and some discussion of what
values might be important in schooling. A mixture of approaches have been suggested, approaches
that vary between incorporating explicit teaching of values (what is called character education in
the United States) and focusing on moral reasoning including moral dilemmas, moral clarification
and moral judgment (DEST 2003a). In the Australian Curriculum values emerge most prominently
through the capabilities strands, particularly Ethical behaviour, Personal and social competence, and
Intercultural understanding.
Preferred ways of teaching values

There is much discussion as to the most appropriate way to teach values. It is a very complex area of the
curriculum and the research is not conclusive, but there are a few useful indicators of what works and
what does not work that have been built up over decades of trial and error (McKenzie 2004). Leming
(1997), in reviewing character education in the United States, argued that three different approaches
were pursued in the twentieth century. In the 1920s and 1930s, inculcation of set virtues was the
technique used. Research on programs in use in that period by Hartshorne and May (1930) indicated
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information, and for this reason the judgment and
conviction of the defendant corporation, as well as the
defendant Brainard, should be reversed and the
information dismissed.” (People v. Brainard, 192 App.
Div. 816, 821.)
2—The test is the literary as distinct
from the pornographic.
It being a question of law, what are the tests which the courts use
in the determination of that question? Those tests, like all the others
which the courts have used in the application of criminal law to the
case of the individual against whom it is alleged that his act has
offended the interests of society, are simple and do not go beyond
the actual necessities. Courts in this respect have not forgotten the
lessons of history; and of these lessons one which Macaulay’s
school boy knows is that under our common law dispensation there
has not been, since the abolition of the Courts of Star Chamber and
of High Commission, nor will there ever be again, such a spirit in our
law as may result, through statute or decision, in the institution of a
censorship of the mind in its modes of expression. To use the words
of Seabury, J., “it is no part of the duty of courts to exercise a
censorship over literary productions” (St. Hubert Guild v. Quinn, 64
Misc. 336, 340). And it is in that spirit that common law courts have
approached any case such as this from the days when the obscene
became cognizable by common law courts in the exercise of a
jurisdiction which they took over from the Courts Spiritual. (Rex v.
Curl, 17 How. St. Trials, 153.) It is true that, for a time, during the
intellectual ferment in the early part of the Nineteenth Century, the
courts, under the inspiration of Lord Eldon did revert to an idea of
censorship closely resembling that which Laud advocated in the
days of Courts of High Commission; but contemporary opinion of the
best minds of the bar, as well as of the public, revolted against this
attitude, and the rule thus suggested never became a part of our law.
Seabury, J., has well traced this as follows:
“The early attitude of the courts upon this subject
discloses an illiberality of opinion which is not reflected
in the recent cases. Perhaps no one was more
responsible for this early position than Lord Eldon, who
refused to protect by injunction Southey’s “Wat Tyler”
until the innocent character of the work was proved.
Southey v. Sherwood, 2 Meriv. 437. He assumed a like
position in reference to Byron’s Cain (6 Petersdorff Abr.
558, 559), and expressed a doubt (which he hoped
was reasonable) as to the innocent character of
Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. “When Dr. Johnson heard of
some earlier opinions to the same effect, he is reported
to have said: ‘They make me think of your judges, not
with that respect which I should wish to do.’ Judging
from the fact that a jury held the publication of
Shelley’s ‘Queen Mab’ to be an indictable offense
(Moxon’s Case, 2 Mod. St. Tr. 356), it seems that
jurors were no more liberal than judges in these
matters. In commenting upon some of Lord Eldon’s
judgments on the subject of literary property, Lord
Campbell remarked that ‘it must have been a strange
occupation for a judge who for many years had
meddled with nothing more imaginative than an Act of
Parliament to determine in what sense the
speculations of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Lucifer are to be
understood.’ 10 Campbell’s Lives of the Lord
Chancellors, 257.” (St. Hubert Guild v. Quinn, 64 Misc.
336, 339, 340.)
But the spirit of censorship, thus for a time strangely revived, soon
passed. Today therefore the courts apply simple tests, tests savoring
of nothing that involves censorship, tests necessary only for the
protection of the public against influences that directly, and without
the necessity of argument in demonstrating their effect, bear upon
public morals. It requires, therefore, but a few words to describe
these tests as they are known to the law of this state today.
In the first place, the words of the statute mean exactly what they
say and require no subtlety of interpretation. In the words of Cullen,
C. J., the statute “is directed against lewd, lascivious and salacious
or obscene publications, the tendency of which is to excite lustful
and lecherous desire.” (People v. Eastman, 188 N. Y. 478, 480.) That
being true, this simple test excludes others which, however subtle
may be the argument in their support, however honest the intention
of the people who urge them, inevitably lead to the thing which
Seabury, J., has said,—but which everybody would know even if it
had not been said by this particular Judge,—is outside the purview of
criminal law as administered in English-speaking countries,—
censorship by indictment.
In the second place this statute does not forbid publication of the
polemical. “It seems to be”, says Andrews, J., of the book under
review by the Court of Appeals, “largely a protest against what the
author, we believe mistakenly, regards as the prudery of newspaper
criticism.” (Halsey v. New York Society, 234 N. Y. 1, 4.) The
prosecutor, and indeed the court itself, may not agree with what the
book may advocate, may not take the sentiment which it expresses,
but the book cannot be condemned for that. “Differ as men may as to
the views of Voltaire on many questions”, said Seabury, J., in the
case which we have already cited, “his works cannot be burned by
the public hangman under the guise of a section of our Penal Code.”
(St. Hubert’s Guild v. Quinn, 64 Misc. 336, 342.) We need not,
however, pursue this subject further, because People v. Eastman
(188 N. Y. 478) stands as a monument to the proposition under
discussion. One has only to read the article for which an indictment
was brought (it is repeated verbatim in the dissenting opinion of
O’Brien, J., at pp. 482–484) to realize that its nature was such as to
excite in the minds of thousands of our best citizens feelings which it
is impossible adequately to describe. Yet, disregarding the decision
of the English courts in Regina v. Hicklin (L. B. 3 Q. B. 369), where a
precisely similar book was held indictable, our Court of Appeals
sustained a demurrer to an indictment which set forth the article in
question.
Nor is it necessary, in order to protect a book from indictment, that
it teach a moral lesson.
People v. Brainard (192 App. Div. 816);
Halsey v. N. Y. Society (234 N. Y. 1).
The Appellate Division of this Department has well borne out this
proposition when, in reversing a judgment of conviction, it said:
“I can see no useful purpose in the publication of the
book. I cannot agree that it has any moral lesson to
teach. Its publication might well be prohibited as a
recital of life in the underworld, as is prohibited books
containing recitals of crimes.” (People v. Brainard, 192
App. Div. 816, 821.)
In short, this statute was not intended, as the Court of Appeals has
said in one of the cases above cited, “to regulate manners”. (People
v. Eastman, 188 N. Y. 478, 480.)
What then do these tests of the law come to? The courts in their
own words have told us that. If the book has literary merit, then it is
not within the condemnation of the statute.
O’Brien, J.:
“It is very difficult to see upon what theory these
world-renowned classics can be regarded as
specimens of that pornographic literature which it is the
office of the Society for the Suppression of Vice to
suppress, or how they can come under any stronger
condemnation than that high standard literature which
consists of the works of Shakespeare, of Chaucer, of
Laurence Sterne, and of other great English writers,
without making reference to many parts of the Old
Testament Scriptures, which are to be found in almost
every household in the land. The very artistic
character, the high qualities of style, the absence of
those glaring and crude pictures, scenes, and
descriptions which affect the common and vulgar mind,
make a place for books of the character in question,
entirely apart from such gross and obscene writings as
it is the duty of the public authorities to suppress. It
would be quite as unjustifiable to condemn the writings
of Shakespeare and Chaucer and Laurence Sterne,
the early English Novelists, the playwrights of the
Restoration, and the dramatic literature which has so
much enriched the English language, as to place an
interdict upon these volumes, which have received the
admiration of literary men for so many years.” (Re
Worthington Co., 30 N. Y. Supp. 361, 362; 24 L. R. A.
110.)
Andrews, J.:
“With the author’s felicitous style, it contains
passages of purity and beauty * * * Here is the work
of a great author, written in admirable style, which has
become a part of classical literature.” (Halsey v. N. Y.
Society, 234 N. Y. 1, 4, 6.)
Seabury, J.:
“Offensive as some of the phrases of this book
undoubtedly are to the taste of our day, yet I do not
think we can declare a contract for its sale illegal on
this account.” (St. Hubert Guild v. Quinn, 64 Misc. 336,
338.)
Literature, to use the phrase of Matthew Arnold, is nothing more
nor less than a criticism of life, of the relation of man to the universe
and to his fellow man. When any phase of that subject is discussed,
then you have literature, though you may not agree with the point of
view which the author advocates. Thus, in one of the cases from
which we have already frequently cited, Seabury, J., points out the
violent differences of opinion that arose and still exist, regarding
Voltaire’s “Maid of Orleans”:
“Frederick the Great admired it and paid it the
doubtful compliment of imitation, and Condorcet
regarded it only as an attack upon hypocrisy and
superstition. Less prejudiced critics than these
condemn it with severity, and even admirers of Voltaire
regret that there are passages in it which have dimmed
the fame of its author.” (St. Hubert Guild v. Quinn, 64
Misc. 336, 338.)
For that very reason the final test of the law, as recognized by the
courts of this State, is simple. It is only whether the thing is literature
as distinct from a simple effort to portray the obscene.
It is quite true that scattered here and there in the books, are to be
found expressions to the effect that a thing may be literature and yet
be within the statute. The argument is that there are two classes in
the community, the intelligent and the ignorant. Something may be
literature and the intelligent will so appreciate it, but the statute is to
protect the other class—the ones who ought not to be entrusted with
books at all. The sequitur is that a book is unlawful unless it can be
read by the ignorant, by the child incapable of appreciating the
sustained thought. To this effect will one find expressions in U. S. v.
Clark (38 Fed. 734), and the General Term decision in People v.
Muller (32 Hun, 209). But one will never find that the Court of
Appeals of this state has spoken to that effect, or has made that
classification. It did not do so in affirming the judgment in People v.
Muller (96 N. Y. 408), which, by the way, dealt with a picture and not
a book; and it certainly did not do so when it expressed itself in
People v. Eastman (188 N. Y. 478) or in Halsey v. N. Y. Society (234
N. Y. 1). In People v. Eastman, as we have said, the article was
undoubtedly such as should not fall into the hands of a child; and in
Halsey v. N. Y. Society the majority opinion frankly admits that there
are paragraphs in the book which, standing alone, are undoubtedly
indecent. Nor has the successor of the General Term, the Appellate
Division, spoken to that effect. Its decision in People v. Brainard (192
App. Div. 816) certainly does not bear out such interpretation. Nor
have judges, sitting at Special or Trial Term, or in the Appellate Term,
so expressed themselves. O’Brien, J., certainly made no such
distinction in Matter of Worthington (30 N. Y. Supp. 363; 24 L. R. A.
110). Nor did Seabury, J., make any such distinction in St. Hubert
Guild v. Quinn (64 Misc. 336). If that were the law of this state, we
say, with all sincerity, that literature would have to be reduced to the
level of the movies; the stage would be reduced to the rendition of
charades, thousands of plays being barred, ranging from those of
which Shakespeare was the craftsman, to the productions of
Somerset Maugham; Swinburne’s Chorus in “Atalanta in Calydon”
would be on the index, and Keats would be barred from any public
library because of “Endymion” and “The Eve of St. Agnes”. Nay, Sir
Walter Scott’s collection of border minstrelsy would be barred
because it contains those two exquisite ballads, “The Eve of St.
John” and “Clerk Saunders and May Margaret”; and, incidentally, the
“Oxford Book of English Verse” should be burned because it
contains reprints of all these things. But it is useless to pursue this
subject, for, to use the favorite phrase of the late Chief Justice White,
“to state the argument is to answer it”. No, the test is whether the
thing is literary; whether it is a criticism of life; whether that effort is
apparent in the book.
3—In applying this test, all reasonable
doubt should be resolved in favor of
the book.
The courts, to repeat, apply the simple test of literature as distinct
from the mere portrayal of the obscene. And in getting at whether a
thing is literature, they are not disposed to substitute their judgment
for that of others who speak of the book in the spirit of sincerity; nor
are they disposed to tip the scales, even if people of that sort differ in
their conclusions. “We have quoted”, says Andrews, J., in the latest
case, “estimates of the book as showing the manner in which it
affects different minds. The conflict among the members of this court
itself points a finger at the dangers of a censorship entrusted to men
of one profession, of like education and similar surroundings.”
(Halsey v. N. Y. Society, 234 N. Y. 1, 6.) Likewise, the opinions in St.
Hubert’s Guild v. Quinn (64 Misc. 336), and Matter of Worthington
(30 N. Y. Supp. 363; 24 L. R. A. 110) refer to various criticisms of the
books involved, as do the opinions of Magistrate Simpson and
Magistrate Oberwager in the very recent (and still unreported) cases
of People v. Seltzer and People v. Salsberg and Boni & Liveright. In
all of those cases the criticisms were contained in book or magazine
form, which were available to the Court. In the present case the
various criticisms of the book here involved are not available in such
form, and consequently we are submitting herewith copies of letters
and newspaper clippings containing the opinions of many competent
critics concerning that book, which we respectfully ask this Court to
consider in rendering its decision upon this motion.
4—In judging the book by the
standards above indicated, it must be
read as a whole, and, on that basis, it
must be upheld even though it may
contain portions which would not
stand the test if isolated.
From what has already been said another conclusion follows:—
The book is to be judged not by isolated passages in it, but by the
whole book. Peculiarly is this true in the present case, where the
book at large is indicted, not parts of it, as was the case when
complaint was made in Special Sessions, but all of it without
reference to any particular part. That, when a book is indicted as a
whole, no judgment can be passed upon it which is not based upon
a reading of the whole, with the necessary test of correlation which
this entails, would seem manifest on its face. But in view of certain
expressions which judicially fell in the federal case of U. S. v.
Bennett (16 Blatchf. 338; Fed. Cs. No. 14,571), it is just as well to
refer to the fact that, both in England and in this State, the test is the
whole book, not isolated parts to which it may please the prosecutor
to point an accusing finger.
Halsey v. N. Y. Society (234 N. Y. 1);
Fitzpatrick’s Case (31 How. St. Tr. 1170, 1186).
St. Hubert’s Guild v. Quinn (64 Misc. 336).
“The judgment of the court below is based upon a
few passages in each of these works, and these
passages have been held to be of such a character as
to invalidate the contract upon which the action has
been brought. These few passages furnish no criterion
by which the legality of the consideration of the
contract can be determined. That some of these
passages, judged by the standard of our day, mar
rather than enhance the value of these books can be
admitted without condemning the contract for the sale
of the books as illegal. The same criticism has been
directed against many of the classics of antiquity and
against the works of some of our greatest writers from
Chaucer to Walt Whitman, without being regarded as
sufficient to invalidate contracts for the sale or
publication of their works.”
St. Hubert Guild v. Quinn (64 Misc. 336, 339).
“No work may be judged from a selection of such
paragraphs alone. Printed by themselves they might,
as a matter of law, come within the prohibition of the
statute. So might a similar selection from Aristophanes
or Chaucer or Boccaccio or even from the Bible. The
book, however, must be considered broadly as a
whole.”
Halsey v. N. Y. Society (234 N. Y. 1, 4).
The proposition thus laid down is nothing but common sense,—the
common sense which was expressed, over a century ago, in a trial in
the Irish King’s Bench, for the publication of an alleged libel:
“Mr. Burrowes.—My lords, I beg to know, whether
the Court be of opinion, that without any averment
respecting other passages in the book, the counsel for
the crown are entitled to read them.
Mr. Justice Day.—In order to show the quo animo,
they may read those other passages.
Mr. Justice Osborne.—I think they have such right,
as evidence of the intention.
Lord Chief Justice Downes.—And the defendant, if
he thinks fit, may read all the rest of the book.”
(Fitzpatrick’s Case, 31 Hows. St. Tr. 1170, 1186.)
It follows that if the book must be taken as a whole, then it cannot
be condemned piecemeal. No part can be read without a mind to its
relation to the whole. In the latest case on the subject, Andrews J.,
speaking for the majority of the court, twice concedes that, taken by
themselves, certain parts of the book are not to be justified:
“It contains many paragraphs, however, which taken
by themselves are undoubtedly vulgar and indecent.
* * * On the other hand, it does contain indecent
paragraphs.” Halsey v. N. Y. Society (234 N. Y. 1, 4, 6).
Yet the book was upheld for all that, both because, in the words
which the court adopted from the late Professor Wells of Sewanee,
the author there involved “helps us over the instinctive repulsion that
we feel for the situation”, and because he excites “a purely artistic
interest”, etc. (Halsey v. N. Y. Society, 234 N. Y. 1, 5.)
5—The book, read as a whole,
sustains the test of the law.
The following has been prepared by counsel, with full appreciation
of the fact that the book under review must, in the last analysis,
speak for itself, and that every book makes its different impression
on each mind that it reaches. The only possible aid to reflection
which this writing can constitute therefore, lies in such suggestion as
it fairly may convey, that Mr. Cabell’s book is literature, in the
accepted sense of that term, which is, as the foregoing brief shows,
the legal sense as well. It presents a theme and its object is to
stimulate reflection.
The book in question is a criticism of life. It treats with satire
certain of the thoughts so current among us. It is Matthew Arnold
and Carlyle in different guise. But the guise adopted is not new or
novel. In the Sixteenth Century Erasmus put forth his comments on
the ruling ideas of his time by writing a book “In Praise of Folly”.
Mr. Cabell has adopted the same method of treatment. To his book
can be applied the words which Professor Wells spoke of a book
which our Court of Appeals has recently held not to be within the
condemnation of the statute invoked in the present case: “With a
springboard of fact in the seventeenth century to start from, he *
* * transfers the adventures from the real world to a sort of forest of
Arden, where the Rosalind of Shakespeare might meet a Watteau
shepherdess and a melancholy Jacques.” (Halsey v. N. Y. Society,
234 N. Y. 1, 5.)
But that is not the only motive of the book. It deals also with
aspirations for the unattainable, aspirations which it falls to the lot of
some men to feel,—aspirations whose portrayal finds expression in
books ranging from Goethe’s “Faust” to Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbitt”.
These are things which, to use the words of Magistrate Simpson in
the recent (and still unreported) case of People v. Seltzer, are not
“naturally calculated to excite in the susceptible impure
imaginations”. And if we want a moral lesson, we have it, because
these desires are shown to be useless. The conventional cannot be
escaped by fleeing to sin, for wickedness itself is conventional.
And may we observe in passing that the author, Mr. Cabell, is no
radical? He makes no plea for reform by way of sociological
experiment. Indeed, as expressed in “Beyond Life”, his contempt for
sociology has been condemned by one of the apostles of the new
Reign of Science and a lecturer in the Rand School (Robinson, “The
Mind in the Making”, page 208). “What we want”, said Mr. Gradgrind,
“are facts”. Mr. Cabell’s book now under attack deals with things not
within the spectrum of the Gradgrind School,—eternal things which
continue whether the world happens to be of the “New Philosophy”
mode of thinking, or to have returned to the Age of Faith. How well
he succeeds with what he has undertaken is quite another matter; in
law it is sufficient that he has assumed the task. And with this in
mind, the following undertakes to tell what one reader, at least, may
think that “Jurgen” is about.
Jurgen’s name is “derived from jargon, a confused chattering such
as birds give forth at sunrise” (183).[5] He is a pawnbroker, and he
lives in Poictesme, but it might just as well be Kennaquhair. In his
youth he had been in love with a Lady Dorothy; at forty-four we find
him a pawnbroker, settled down to business, with a wife who has all
the virtues of the good wife; somewhat henpecked, longing, like
Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt, for he knows not what. He has not the culture
of Faust, he is not a Ph.D.; but, like the doctor of Leipzig whose
venturings as set forth in legend attracted Marlowe and then Goethe,
Jurgen yearns for “the distant land”, where he shall be able “to grasp
infinite nature”. He thinks that he is a “monstrous clever fellow”;—so
did Faust, the learned doctor,—in the end he reaches his salvation
through a return to the routine from whence he came. Like Faust he
assumes to unravel a tangled knot. Life is a riddle, nature is a
mystery, justice has an indefinable basis. The learned man in
Goethe’s poem seeks to find out why these things are so;
Mr. Cabell’s hero is a man of ordinary station, but he, too, pursues
the quest.
Jurgen passes from his routine of life, as Faust does, through
communion with spirits that partake of the power of darkness. It all
starts with one night when, on his way home from a day of trafficking
in his shop, Jurgen passes a Cistercian monk who, having stumbled
over a stone, is cursing the devil that had placed it there. “Fie,
brother”, says this wordly wise, this all sufficient Jurgen, “have not
the devils enough to bear as it is?” (1) This attracts the attention of
an earth spirit, one Koshchei, “who made things as they are”.
For that reason this spirit, Koshchei, has his limitations. To him
love is impossible—not carnal love, but the love of God, such love as
never enters into Hell (257); such love as Jurgen’s grandmother,
instructed by the priest, has for God (299, 302). Also to this earth
spirit, Koshchei, is pride impossible (303). Of heavenly love the earth
spirit cannot conceive, because he “made things as they are, and
day and night he contemplates things as they are”. “How then”, says
God Himself, “can Koshchei love anything?” (303). Pride, as the
philosophical Satan tells Jurgen, is impossible to whoever it was that
made things as they are, because he has to look at them, having
nothing else to look at, so how can he be proud? (257). Almost,
having in mind a certain treatise, De Civitate Dei, we can imagine St.
Augustine speaking. The things of this world, the things as they are,
are not to be loved, and he who made them, assuredly not the real
God, finds love foreign to his breast.
Anyhow, this Koshchei, “monstrously pleased” with Jurgen’s
defense of the devils against the Cistercian monk, puts himself in
Jurgen’s way. Appearing to the hero in the shape of a small black
gentleman, the earth spirit promises Jurgen a reward (10–11).
What that reward is to be soon develops. Arriving home, Jurgen
finds his wife has vanished. She has gone to a cave, of evil magic,
across Amneran Heath. On Walpurgis night, that night renowned in
the calendar of demonology, Jurgen follows her there; but first, at her
bidding he must remove from his neck a cross which had hung there,
the gift of his dead mother (13).
Then comes a medley of classic, of Russian, and of Norse
mythology. Jurgen finds in the cave a centaur, who gives him a
Nessus-shirt (16)—“an old poet, loaned at once a young man’s body
and the Centaur’s shirt” (131)—the young man’s body which Faust
desired, but the Nessus-shirt which even Hercules could not wear for
long. Jurgen is now off for his tour of the infinite.
And yet it is not the real Jurgen who makes this voyage. The real
Jurgen, where is he? There are, in fact, many Jurgens. One of these
is a little boy in Heaven. “That boy”, says God, “is here with me as
you yourself have seen. And today there is nothing remaining of him
anywhere in the man that is Jurgen” (297). Another Jurgen is “a
young man barely come of age” (23) who had loved the young girl
Dorothy, and who sees the Jurgen of today only “as one might see
the face of a dead man drowned in muddy water” (31). Then there is
the Jurgen of today, the Jurgen who “retains his shop and a fair line
of business”, the Jurgen whose confiteor is that Koshchei, the earth
spirit “who made things as they are”, has dealt with him very justly.
“And probably his methods are everything they should be; certainly I
cannot go so far as to say that they are wrong; but still, at the same
time—” (368). And, separate from all these Jurgens, the little boy
who loved God, the youth who cherished the normal things of youth,
and the Jurgen of middle age who worships things as they are, is yet
another Jurgen—the Faust-Jurgen, who, by favor of the powers of
darkness, goes careering on his voyage of the world of fancy, the
world of vision, the world of regrets, the world of disillusion.
The sequence of his adventures may easily be traced.
In the first episode Jurgen visits a garden between dawn and
sunrise. It is a garden where “each man that has ever lived has
sojourned for a little while, with no company save his illusions” (20).
And the spirit of it all is shown forth in the people whom he first
encounters. For they are a small boy and a girl who forever walk in
the glaze of a mustard jar (19),—forever, that is, like the youth and
the maid on the Grecian urn which drew the immortal gaze of Keats.
The glance sweeps forward soon, however, and hence presently in
this garden of memory Jurgen meets the girl Dorothy, meets her and
talks with her (24–33). When she had gone all was gone and so,
when the sun rose, it was simply “another workday” (34). The
Philistine spirit blew upon the garden, it was to be remodelled and all
the gold was to be rubbed away (36–7).
Then follows a visit to a character of many names, but always the
same. Jurgen calls her Sereda, after the manner of Russian
mythology, but she corresponds with the Roman Cybele, the
Goddess of Earth (210, 316) and in the Norse she is called Æsred
(176–7). Goddess of Earth, she takes the color out of all things. The
Fates spin the glowing threads and weave them into curious
patterns; but when she is done with them there is no more color,
beauty or strangeness apparent “than in so many dishrags” (40), for
she bleaches where others have colored. Naturally enough she
refers Jurgen back to Koshchei, the spirit who made things as they
are. Once more, through his intervention, Jurgen meets Dorothy. For
in his attempt to answer life’s riddle, he must perforce return to the
girl whom he had loved while young. If but they two could be
together again in youth, would not the failures of his life, the
disappointments of the middle years, be but as things that never had
happened? (See 55.)
While the glamour still holds its spell, to Jurgen this is the young
Dorothy, the girl who has not yet married; and so, on the moonlit
ramp of her father’s castle they talk of many things as young lovers
would. To them soon comes the girl’s future husband, but to Jurgen
the magic makes it the appearance simply of a rival suitor; and, the
magic having not yet exhausted its force, the conventional will have
it that, in the words of the old stage directions, “they fight, and the
rival is slain”. Then the conqueror turns to the lady, but dawn is
coming and the magic is spent. Jurgen finds that this is not the
Dorothy whom he had seen in the garden between dawn and sunrise
(47–60). She is now repulsive, and he repels her. It is meet and right,
therefore, that the next place to which Jurgen comes is a cave where
are the bodies of many whom he had formerly known (60–65).
Winding his way through this cave he comes to Guenevere. She is
held by the power of a giant; and from that giant does Jurgen rescue
her (66–78).
Guenevere, of course, is the lady, charming but of errant fancy, to
whom the chronicles Morte d’Arthur and Mabinogion were devoted,
and of whose vagaries speak Tennyson’s “Idyls of the King.” At this
time her marriage to Arthur has been arranged, and Lancelot is
coming as his master’s envoy to arrange the details of the wedding.
In the end Lancelot captures the heart of Guenevere (147) but,
meanwhile her inclinations have their way with Jurgen. For Jurgen
abides with her father in the latter’s city of Cameliard, which, of
course, is but another name for Camelot (78–146). It is, to use the
words of our time, a house party; and, like many house parties, it
brings forth various events. To the guest Jurgen it befalls to do things
ancient and modern, to rescue a princess from a giant, after the
fashion of Sir Thomas Malory (82–3), to converse with ghosts in a
haunted bed room (145–9) and to carry on with the fickle
Guenevere, whose outstanding trait is “her innocence, combined
with a certain moral obtuseness” (108). Her worldlywise father learns
of the affair, talks it over with Jurgen, and reminds him of the duty
apparent in the circumstances, that, if necessary, Jurgen should lie
like a gentleman (93). The matter, however, comes to nothing, for the
time of Guenevere’s marriage to Arthur is at hand. So she and
Jurgen part, she with her mind already full of Lancelot (147) and
Jurgen being taken with the charms of a new person of the play, of
whom presently. In short, Jurgen leaves Guenevere where Tennyson
takes her up, the stage being thus cleared for the drama of Lancelot.
Jurgen leaves Cameliard with one who is called Anaitis (147). But
even as Guenevere typifies innocence combined with obtuseness
(108) Anaitis is the personification of a capital sin. Like the earth
goddess Sereda, known also to men as Cybele and Æsred (of whom
supra) this Anaitis bears different names in different places. But
always she is the same. In the Arthurian legend she is the Lady of
the Lake (109), in classic lands she was Venus, on Eastern soil she
was Ashtoreth. She serves the moon (150), she is the sun’s
daughter (173); and in all lands from Paphos to Babylon do men rear
temples in her honor (341–3). But the breath of evil nevertheless
goes forth from her; and in her train follows Alecto, whose quality is
retribution (178).
With this Venus, this Anaitis in her land of Cocaigne, Jurgen lives
for a time. But he is not the only guest of whom legend bears record,
not the only visitor of whom contemporary literature and art have
spoken. Mr. Cabell, however, preserving that balance of humor
which always in this book is kept level, has given this situation a new
color. Tannhäuser is tempted to return to the Venusberg; Jurgen
leaves Anaitis with never a glance behind.
But while he stays there, things of black magic happen. Nor is that
strange. Anyone familiar with the legend embodied in “Tannhäuser”
might expect to find that all things abhorred by Christians are
practiced in the land of Venus, the Cocaigne of Anaitis.
And so we are able truly to understand the episode, occurring
while Jurgen abides in this country of Cocaigne, to which so much
attention has been directed by Mr. Sumner (chap. 22, pp. 151–158).
This Moon Goddess (159) “who ruled not merely in Cocaigne but
furtively swayed the tides of life everywhere the Moon keeps any
power over tides” (159) had but one mission, “to divert and to turn
aside and deflect” (159). Goethe puts into the mouth of
Mephistopheles the tremendous words, “I am the spirit that always
denies”. The episode in the present book simply shows forth the
action of the spirit that denies, for to deflect is to deny. What occurs
in the passage to which Mr. Sumner objects is nothing but a
repetition of the mediæval practice of the Black Mass, the Devil’s
Mass. It is certainly not against the dictates of literature to publish
what the author conceives as a detail of the mysterious Black Mass;
for if so then the novel, “Black Diamonds”, by the famous Hungarian
novelist of a generation ago, Maurice Jokai, would never have been
allowed in translation. And that the ceremony in question was a
Black Mass is clear after we read, not merely the words describing
the ceremony itself, but the references to it that follow.
In the inner sanctuary we find a toad nailed to a cross (157). The
incident occurred “on the eve of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist”
(159), in other words Midsummer Night’s Eve, at which time,
according to mediæval tradition, the powers of darkness are allowed
abroad.[6] Let us remember that in the country of Venus “the Church
is not Christian”, and the law is “do that which seems good to you”
(161). The very goddess herself was “created by perversity, and
everyone knows that it is the part of piety to worship one’s creator in
fashions acceptable to that creator” (165). That goddess, whose
mission it was to divert, to deny, naturally enjoyed “the ceremony of
God-baiting” as Jurgen calls it (157). Tannhäuser abode in the
Venusberg, and nobody has dreamed of forbidding Wagner’s opera
based on that. Jurgen lived in precisely the same place, but simply
described with more cynicism. Really, we have nothing but
“Tannhäuser” as it would have been written by Heine, if he had
happened to take up the German legend in the spirit of his own
cynical wit. Wagner took it seriously, and Mr. Cabell does not take it
seriously; that is all the difference.
It will probably be advisable at this point to explain the details of
the lance and the veil as used in this Devil’s Mass. The explanation,
fortunately, can be shortly put. The lance was a real lance, which the
hooded man handed to Jurgen (153). The veil was also real. It hung
before the adytum (Gr. = inner part of a temple) and inside this
adytum, beyond the veil, was the cross with a toad nailed upon it
(157). The tip of the lance was red (154) and with it the veil was
pierced that concealed the cross, but upon the cross hung the
disgusting figure of a toad. The whole thing was, as Jurgen called it
on the spot, a piece of “God-baiting”, a mockery, after the manner of
the mediæval necromancers, of the mystery of the Passion of the
Cross, of the lance that pierced a sacred Side, of the veil of the
Temple that broke with a certain event which changed all the tides of
history.
Taking it by itself this incident is not obscene or lewd; for mockery
of sacred belief does not, as matter of law, fall into that class. An
attack on religious belief cannot be indictable as an obscenity under
Section 1141 of the Penal Code; if prosecuted, it must be indicted as
a libel (People v. Eastman, 188 N. Y. 478). But we will not allow the
defendants, nor Mr. Cabell, the author, to remain for a moment solely
under that protection. This book puts forth the attack upon the
Christian belief, not to support the attack, but to deride the attack
itself. It is a matter of common observation that infidelity itself
partakes of a religious fervor, and it is of that fervor that Jurgen

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(Original PDF) Teaching Humanities

and Social Sciences in the Primary

Chapter 3: Civics and Citizenship��99

Chapter 4: Economics and Business�� 121

Chapter 5: Geography�� 144

Chapter 6: History�� 179

Chapter 7: Integrating Humanities and Social Sciences�� 216

Chapter 8: Global Education��225

Chapter 10: Assessment in Humanities and Social Sciences�� 265

Appendix: Children’s Literature and Web Resources�� 274

About the Authors

The Australian Curriculum

Why do we need this book?

How to read this book

What is this area in the Australian Curriculum?

The knowledge and understandings of Humanities

The processes of Humanities and Social Sciences

The values of Humanities and Social Sciences

Preferred ways of teaching values

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(Original PDF) Teaching Humanities

and Social Sciences in the Primary

Chapter 3: Civics and Citizenship���������������������������������������������������������������������99

Chapter 4: Economics and Business�������������������������������������������������������������� 121

Chapter 5: Geography������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 144

Chapter 6: History������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 179

Chapter 7: Integrating Humanities and Social Sciences������������������������������� 216

Chapter 8: Global Education��������������������������������������������������������������������������225

Chapter 10: Assessment in Humanities and Social Sciences��������������������� 265

Appendix: Children’s Literature and Web Resources����������������������������������������������������������� 274

About the Authors

The Australian Curriculum

Why do we need this book?

How to read this book

What is this area in the Australian Curriculum?

The knowledge and understandings of Humanities

The processes of Humanities and Social Sciences

The values of Humanities and Social Sciences

Preferred ways of teaching values

Вам также может понравиться

Chapter 3: Civics and Citizenship��99

Chapter 4: Economics and Business�� 121

Chapter 5: Geography�� 144

Chapter 6: History�� 179

Chapter 7: Integrating Humanities and Social Sciences�� 216

Chapter 8: Global Education��225

Chapter 10: Assessment in Humanities and Social Sciences�� 265

Appendix: Children’s Literature and Web Resources�� 274