This chapter provides educators with a new way of looking at how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been represented within the Australian Curriculum. We commence with an open discussion about the structure and potential shortcomings of the cross-curriculum priorities as evident in content descriptions across the Australian Curriculum. Use of a systematic method will help educators aim to engage learners in moral, historical and epistemic questions of Indigenous connectedness to Country/Place and their custodianship of it and the nature of Indigenous agency, resistance and national reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. We will also look at cross-curriculum content structure; provide a pedagogic model for culturally responsive teaching; advise on establishing authentic school and community engagement; and suggest a framework for the development of rich, contextually situated and holistic programs for teaching the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cross-curriculum content across the primary years of schooling.

What does it mean to live a good life? Philosophers through the ages such as Aristotle, Plato, Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche have wrestled with what it means to be a good citizen and live a good life. More recently, Howard Gardner applied his thinking to the skills that future generations need to synthesise and communicate complex ideas, respect human differences and fulfil the responsibilities of work, life and citizenship. He identified ‘five minds for the future’, one of which is the ethical mind. To be ethically minded calls upon citizens to know their rights and responsibilities, actively contribute to the good of society and foster citizenship within and between communities. Communities encompass the family, educational setting, workplace, nation and global community. It is through contributing to others as active and informed citizens that meaning is acquired.

Educators within contemporary Australian educational settings are increasingly being called on to enact their pedagogy in multicultural classrooms, yet pedagogies remain oriented towards a narrow learner cohort. Meaningful inclusion of culturally and religiously diverse learners not only focuses on what is being taught or what knowledge is privileged, but is concerned with how it is taught and from whose perspective. Importantly, it prioritises what learners bring to educational settings – their diverse knowledge(s), languages, values and beliefs; all of which are embedded in their ways of knowing, being and doing informed by their cultural and religious traditions. This chapter aims to support educators in enacting culturally responsive pedagogy, including consideration of learners’ world views, knowledge(s) and ways of knowing, as well as respect for identities and backgrounds as meaningful sources for optimal learning, while simultaneously holding high expectations of them all. Educators will be challenged to examine epistemological and pedagogical diversity in HASS teaching and learning, to further develop learners’ knowledge, values and beliefs towards engaged and informed citizenship.

For early career educators, it can be challenging to navigate and orient themselves within the field of early childhood education. Increasing demands on, and accountability for, early childhood educators around the provision of a high-quality curriculum and clear learning outcomes for children are significant in their own right; however, for early career educators the lack of clarity around ‘how we know’ children are learning can be uncomfortable. In Australia, the Early Years Learning Framework supports early childhood educators to shape their pedagogy, providing a high-quality early childhood curriculum in a holistic way that outlines what children’s learning could look like, and not what it will look like. This is an important distinction, as it reinforces that early childhood education must focus on context and not content; learning opportunities are influenced by the learner, and early childhood educators need to be aware of the role they adopt in supporting learning.

Upon entering the teaching profession, new educators can become overwhelmed by the diversity of teaching demands, not least finding time and space to navigate an ever-evolving curriculum. The HASS learning area is complex, yet it provides scope to explore a rich and diverse range of concepts through time, place and space on a global scale. Through studying HASS, learners develop the ability to question, think critically, solve problems, communicate effectively, make decisions and adapt to change. This chapter aims to provide early career educators with practical steps to success for implementing effective and engaging HASS learning experiences in educational contexts for primary and middle years learners.

Learning in HASS subjects is usually characterised by inquiry-based learning; collecting, organising, analysing and synthesising information, and research. By their nature, these forms of learning involve and depend on reliable, useful and relevant data and information sources. Effective educators know how to select and help their learners access age-appropriate and suitable resources to support their inquiries, investigations and research. Rather than being provided with ready-made information, inquiry and research-based learning involves learners actively seeking, locating, interpreting, analysing, synthesising, representing and communicating information, evidence and data to inform a HASS inquiry, answer a research question or examine a topic from a range of perspectives. Resourceful educators and learners can capitalise on a wealth of resources available in their local communities to enrich their learning. Most communities feature museums and other collections, significant cultural, heritage and natural sites, as well as groups and individuals with extensive knowledge, stories and experiences that represent valuable learning resources for learners of all ages.

National educational goals describe the responsibility of governments, schools and curriculum to ensure learners develop into effective citizens who can participate in society and employment in a globalised economy. This was initially outlined in the vision of the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (Melbourne Declaration) and later in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration. In promoting values such as social justice, peace, sustainability and democracy, the HASS educational discipline provides the perfect vehicle to achieve this vision. While the rationale and aims are different for each sub-strand within the HASS Australian Curriculum learning area (History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship, and Economics and Business), the overarching theme involves stimulating curiosity, imagination and wonder about the world we live in, ‘and how people can participate as active and informed citizens with high-level skills needed now and in the future’. In reflecting on your own education, were you encouraged to have such curiosity and interest in the world around you?

HASS teaching is aimed at developing lifelong learning skills that will enable learners today to be active citizens of their communities, their nation and the world. It is hoped that the knowledge and skills learnt in educational settings will be utilised and built on over the course of learners’ lives. Inquiry learning provides an excellent vehicle to achieve these goals because it allows learners to go further than assimilating knowledge. The inquiry process in HASS places great emphasis on learners viewing different perspectives and values and using critical thinking skills to evaluate and make decisions. The result of this approach is that learners themselves develop opinions, form values and acquire skills that will underpin their behaviour both now and in the future.

A sense of curiosity and active citizenship can be nurtured in children from a young age. Through a range of immersive and place-based experiences, children can start to make sense of the world around them and demonstrate their social agency. The Australian Curriculum: History focuses on developing an awareness of key features of family and local history and community heritage from Foundation to Year 2. Its key purpose is to make early historical inquiry meaningful, memorable, creative and exploratory. Civics and Citizenship education can help to provide opportunities for children to express their ideas and understand their communities. A dynamic, multiperspectival and affective understanding of the past, and its relationship with the present, is essential in a democracy.

The subject areas that form the HASS learning area are founded on and around ‘values’, and values underpin everything we do in educational settings. This is not surprising, given that values are at the core of our thinking and actions. As human beings, we have core values to which we subscribe – things that we think are of importance and of worth. These values are diverse and influenced by a complex relationship between the individual and their social environment. As an example, consider the values listed by Burgh, Field and Freakley: friendship, security, health, education, beauty, art and wealth. You may disagree and think that holding one or more of the values listed would not in fact lead to a good life; or that an important value is missing from this list; that is, we may disagree that each of these values is of importance. The point, however, is that ‘[e]veryone has values, but there is not universal agreement about what is valuable’. In this chapter, the use of a community of inquiry will be explored as a means of supporting meaningful values inquiry in HASS. The community of inquiry is an approach that empowers learners to think critically about issues pertaining to values, ethics and social justice in a safe environment that promotes diversity and student voice.

It is difficult to think of anything more widespread and enduring than the lure of a good story. It is the warp and weft that weaves old, young, rich and poor of different cultures together and enables the opening of new worlds, concepts and understandings of past, present and future. We can empathise, imagine and live vicariously through stories that are an inseparable part of who we are as human beings. History documents these stories based on evidence interpreted through different lenses over time; Geography lends its knowledge to significance of place, space, time and perspective, providing context and reason; and Civics and Citizenship stories help us to understand our roles and responsibilities, as we seek models of the heroes and heroines found in a good story. For this chapter, a broad view of literacy has been adopted, one that defines it as a social practice which involves teaching learners how to participate in, understand and gain control of the literacy practices embedded within society. This chapter will examine the integrated nature of literacy in HASS through the inclusion of picture books to open and explore issues relating to HASS.

Play is an innate need. It’s a biological behaviour all humans engage in and is essential for children’s wellbeing and development across all domains: social, cognitive, emotional and physical. While play has long been seen as the key vehicle through which young children explore the world, researchers have now recognised the benefits of play to learning 21st century skills such as innovative thinking, problem-solving and collaboration. Intrinsic motivation is an inherent quality of play and a vital aspect of learning; without it, children can lack enthusiasm and willingness to engage, lack effort and persistence in tasks, give up easily and fail to develop independence in their learning. So how can we motivate and inspire learners so they become passionate advocates of their own development through self-driven exploration, questioning, problem-solving and discovery? Play is the key. This chapter discusses the benefits of play and explores how a ‘playful’ pedagogical approach enhances creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking, and can be used to effectively engage, motivate and stimulate learners from early childhood to adolescence in the HASS learning area.