All young people have rich histories, connections to space, place and significant events, which fuel their curiosity about the world in which they live and provide an excellent platform from which powerful HASS learning experiences can be developed. The HASS curriculum, as presented in the Australian Curriculum, provides flexibility for educators to link learning to young people’s lifeworlds and experiences through culturally responsive and inclusive pedagogies. This chapter challenges you to place learners and contexts at the centre of planning, using co-design principles that value young people’s voice, histories, capabilities and connections with people and place in HASS planning, teaching and assessment. All educational settings are enriched with a diversity of learners, who need to be involved in learning designs from the outset, rather than having their diverse needs planned for after the event. Such universal design approaches to learning need to be embedded from the early years of education.

Young people are learning in a digitally connected world where rapid advancements in technology are impacting the way people communicate and live their lives. Technology is changing the way learners access, apply and demonstrate their learning. HASS educators need to embrace this learning context and understand that the world young people are learning about, and learning in, is a globally connected and highly technological one. The impact of technology on learning and educator practice has been widely researched and recognised in education circles. Education technology refers to the tools learners have available to support learning. This includes information technology, software and other digital tools, hardware tools, social media and communication devices. It is clear that although technology has the potential to positively change the way young people learn, the role of the educator is crucial in ensuring that technology is used in ways that improve learning outcomes. The SAMR model is a well-researched and widely accepted framework for supporting educators to embed technologies into teaching and learning.

This chapter contributes an Australian perspective to a growing body of scholarship that explores “applied” hip-hop programs. It begins by introducing international studies that examine how and why hip-hop is used for applied aims, including concerns that hip-hop culture may be trivialised or exploited in institutional settings. The focus then shifts to Australia, where hip-hop workshops have been running since the 1980s. This background informs a literature review that outlines how hip-hop is drawn on in diverse settings from schools to youth centres with an emphasis on hip-hop music (rhyme writing / music production). The review suggests that applied programs are important creative outlets that achieve diverse educational and wellbeing outcomes. However, a recurrent theme is the need for further research. The chapter concludes by linking the literature review with a case study: a pilot project that evaluated hip-hop workshops for First Nations young people in Adelaide. This project found that mentors who run applied programs view hip-hop as a vital tool for self-expression and emotional healing. Together, the literature review and case study demonstrate the potential power of hip-hop but also the need for more evaluations of applied hip-hop programs especially in settings outside of North America, like Australia.

Building sustainable futures through education requires us to understand the world through a transdisciplinary curriculum that addresses pressing global concerns in a consumerist society. The most important challenge for educating for sustainability (EfS) in schools and the community is having its transdisciplinary nature understood and valued. This chapter starts by describing the need for humans to shift the way they live towards greater sustainability, followed by an overview of why it is important to connect learners to the natural world, and particularly the place where they live. We use a set of guiding principles informed by a transdisciplinary approach in science education where EfS has strong connections to the cross-curriculum priorities of Sustainability and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. The chapter concludes by sharing practical suggestions for preservice and early career educators.

Assessment is a fundamental part of the design process of teaching and learning. Educators knowing and understanding their own beliefs and values about the professional work they do in assessment is crucial to learner success and progress. Being able and willing to write quality assessment tasks, to collect the evidence of student learning and to moderate this evidence with colleagues are all part of the science and art of being a professional in education. Assessment enables the educator to understand what students have learnt and determine what they will learn next. It allows educators to set goals for improvement, design the learning program in collaboration with learners beginning with the end in mind, and monitor progress. Educators are continually assessing and this chapter endeavours to make sense of this important professional skill, which impacts on teaching and learning. To illustrate these ideas and skills in relation to Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS), examples from the Australian Curriculum: HASS will be used.

The Asia region (including the Indo-Pacific region) is critically important for Australia’s long-term future as people-to-people links through education and cultural exchange, migration, business, trade, defence and tourism continue to expand and Australia’s relationship with the countries of the region evolves. Referred to as the ‘Asia priority’, the Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia cross-curriculum priority provides opportunities for learners to investigate, understand and recognise the diversity within and between the peoples and countries of the Asia region as well as the diversity within communities in Australia. Referred to as ‘Asia literacy’, and more recently as ‘Asia capability’, this combination of knowledge, understanding and skills prepares learners for the challenges of living, studying and working in the region and in global contexts. This chapter offers strategies for teaching and learning about and from the diverse peoples and cultures of the region in ways that go beyond the instrumentalism of national economic and security interests in Asia. Learners can be encouraged to recognise commonalities and differences as well as appreciate and empathise with the lived experiences of diverse peoples and local communities in Asia and in Australia.

Chapter 5 marks the beginning of a more pointed analysis and justification of partial excuse across Part III, as the target site of the Real Person Approach. The chapter is concerned with exploring the nature and purpose of partial excuse through a historical overview, and with clarifying the version of the defence used to underpin the Universal Partial Defence (UPD), through touring divergent definitional and structural approaches of other common law jurisdictions. Key issues that bear on the definition of the UPD are also introduced. This analysis forms the backdrop of the argument for universalising partial excuse across all offence categories and expanding its grounds beyond mental disorder and provocation/loss of control. Core challenges to universalisation are explained and responded to, concerning the application of partial excuse to homicide only, its characterisation as a form of mitigation at the pre-verdict stage, and issues relating to both coordination and the notion of partial responsibility.

The richness and importance of the HASS learning area pivots on the exploration and understanding of how we are human, our interactions with others and our journey as humans in the world. We are the authors and actors in the story of our past, present and future, captured in the published and unpublished texts that inform our learning in HASS. Writings, drawings, maps, data, images, reports, laws, journals, plays, poetry and ephemera are available as physical and online items because they have been collected, organised, preserved, curated and shared by libraries and librarians, and their colleagues in associated institutions in physical and digital spaces.

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.

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.

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.

Chapter 3 discusses the key methodological and theoretical issues relevant for Balkan linguistics as a specific manifestation of complex language contact. On the one hand, other proposed linguistic areas are discussed, such as Amazonia, Araxes-Iran, the Caucasus, Ethiopia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Meso-America, the Northwest Coast of North America, and parts of Papua New Guinea and Australia. In that regard, the Balkans represent not only the most studied such case but also the most studiable, in that of all the sprachbunds that have been discussed in the literature, the Balkans offer the greatest amount of, and the longest time-depth for, information on the linguistic history of the area, the social history of the peoples in the region, and relevant reconstructible linguistic prehistory. On the other hand, mechanisms of, and relevant factors for, contact-induced change are presented, including multilingualism, interference, accommodation, simplification, pidginization and creolization, code-switching, borrowing, calquing, and language ideology. Further, other methodologies, including the Comparative Method, linguistic geography, and typological assessments offer additional sources of information for both Balkan linguistic prehistory and Balkan dialectology.