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CHAPTER15
INTEGRATING THE
CURRICULUM
KATHLEEN GORDON
Rhys. Li. Jacqui and Ada teach Year 6 in a large school that has worked hard over the last few years
to develop units of work for each subject area in each year level. As each Australian Curriculum
subject has become available. year level groups have been working together with their Head of
Curriculum to tweak or revamp units. The school wants to keep its single discipline approach and
teachers enjoy working in teams and sharing the teaching in some areas (based on expertise). For
example. Li and Rhys teach all of the Year 6 history and Ada and Jacqui teach all the Year 6 science.
The teachers are using this current revision period to map the topics across the curriculum. across
the whole year. They‘d like to rearrange units so that those with related content can be taught at the
same time. For example. they have already linked a history unit about Australian immigration with a
revamped English unit comparing Anh Do‘s The Little Refugee and Rainbow Bird by Czenya Cavouras
and will plan to teach them concurrently. Given the small time allocation given to civics and
citizenship and economics and business. they have been discussing the possibility of integrating
these subjects with each other or with other subjects.
W,Fi·M@f411111…..______________________
Cara is teaching in a one-teacher school with eighteen students between Year 2 and Year 6 in rural
Australia. With their school centenary only twelve months away. she asked her students (and
parents) if they would like to begin to work together on ways to prepare for and celebrate the big
occasion. The community agreed and. after some preliminary discussions. Cara began to map out
possible curriculum links using Australian and state curriculum documents. so she could decide how
much class time she could give over to the project. Not surprisingly. she found substantial matches
within history including investigating the experiences. stories and contributions of people in the local
community. sequencing historical events. examining significant local sites and developments.
exploring change and continuity and creating narratives to communicate their findings. Cara also
found opportunities to link English and mathematics. as planning for the celebrations created real life
purposes to develop many skills including data collection. representation and interpretation: and the
creation and interpretation of written. visual and oral texts. Students and parents understood that
much of the school time spent on the project would form part of their assessable work for the year.
An important part of her planning involved negotiating with students about which things they could do
to meet academic and social goals and then organising these into manageable chunks. Cara enlisted
the help of Jenny (a retired teacher and ex-shire chairperson). Auntie Margaret (local elder and parttime community education officer) and Joanne (Social Sciences Head of Department at the regional
high school) to help. Six months in. Cara is finding that her students have maintained their
enthusiasm and are still doing lots of extra things on the project outside school time. In addition they
are producing some good academic results. Although they have had some ups and downs along the
way. Cara has been able to use these as learning experiences too.
ACTIVITY 15.1 REFLECT ON THIS
These Snapshots illustrate some of the many ways to integrate curriculum in the classroom. Can you
think of an experience from your own primary or secondary education, or while on prac as a student
teacher, where teaching and learning in one subject were linked to another? Was the learning project
based? Was the class in question multi-age or composite? What do you remember about it? Share your
recollections.
Chapter Overview
This chapter describes some practical approaches to integrating teaching and learning in the
social sciences and humanities within the primary school context. It is not intended to map the
theoretical field of curriculum integration. Instead it is hoped that beginning teachers will
become more aware of the scope of curriculum integration and identify ways they could use it to
enhance their teaching practice.
After reading this chapter you should be able to answer the following key questions by
working on the chapter sections listed on the right:
What 1s curriculum integration?
What options are there for integrating the
curriculum?
What does the Australian Curriculum say about
curriculum integration?
How can primary school teachers integrate skills,
concepts and topics from the Australian
Curriculum into their teaching and learning
programs?
Curriculum integration, p. 324
Models of integration, p. 327
Integration and the Australian Curriculum, p. 333
So you are ready to integrate, p. 335
How can primary school teachers integrate across Integration in multi-age classrooms, p. 339
year Levels?
What challenges does integration present for Obstacles to curriculum integration, p. 340
teachers?
323
PART 4 ACROSS THE CURRICULUM, INTEGRATION AND PRIORITIES
CURRICULUM INTEGRATION
Curriculum integration can generally be described as an approach to teaching and
learning that connects knowledge, understandings and skills from within or across
subject areas in meaningful ways. The scenarios in the Snapshots illustrate some of
the diversity found in primary classrooms and suggest that teachers have different
experiences of and approaches to integrating curriculum. Developing an
understanding of the scope of curriculum integration may assist teachers to choose
approaches appropriate to their context.
Why integrate?
For many years, primary school teachers, in particular, have embraced integrative
approaches to planning and teaching because they allow flexibility and support a
more holistic view of learning. Many writers (Barton and Smith, 2000; Hamston and
Murdoch, 1996; Loepp, 1999; Ward, 1996) have proposed that an integrated
curriculum:
makes more sense to children, who don’t perceive knowledge in a fragmented or
compartmentalised manner
reduces the pressure created by rigid timetables
assists students and teachers to develop more efficient means of gathering,
organising and processing information
provides genuine, rich, real world contexts for learning and helps to focus on big
ideas.
What has been happening in Australian primary
schools – the big picture
The late 1960s saw a move away from the teaching of history, geography and civics
as separate subjects in primary schools to the teaching of an integrated subject
called social studies (Marsh, 2004). Although there were some innovations along the
way, this generally continued until the first attempt at a national curriculum in the
early 1990s when a reorganisation of content and skills was combined with a name
change to become Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE). Despite attempts in
some states to radically integrate the curriculum, SOSE (or a variation on that
name) has largely continued to be the way humanities and social sciences have been
delivered in primary schools until the present. Now, in a move back to the
disciplines, a new Australian Curriculum represents this field as the subjects History,
Geography, Civics and Citizenship and Economics and Business.
Those attempts at a radical integration by some education authorities in
Australia are worthy of mention here because of their contribution to thinking and
debate about curriculum integration. One such project was ‘The New Basics’ which
was developed and trialled in Queensland from 1999-2003. The original New Basics
triad consisted of New Basics Curriculum organisers (What to teach), Rich tasks
324
CHAPTER 15 INTEGRATING THE CURRICULUM
(How kids show it) and Productive pedagogies (How it is taught). The curriculum
organisers were:
Life pathways and social futures
Multi-literacies and communications media
Active citizenship
Environments and technologies.
At around the same time, another radicalising of the curriculum was taking place
in Tasmania. Again the curriculum was integrated, doing away with the disciplines
and replacing them with an inquiry-based approach with a focus on pedagogy. The
five organisers of the Essential Learning Framework were:
Thinking
Communicating
Personal futures
Social responsibility
World futures.
Although both initiatives failed to be adopted widely, wilting in the heat of
political and public pressure, concerns raised by academics and resistance by
teachers, ideas within these projects and others (including the Victorian Essential
Learning Standards) have influenced thinking, continue to be used in schools, and
have made their way into current curriculum developments including the Australian
Curriculum – perhaps most noticeably in the General Capabilities.
ACTIVITY 15.2 TAKE THIS FURTHER
1. Access a list of the General Cap~bilities from the Australian Curriculum (http://
www.australiancurriculum.edu.~u/GeneralCapabilities/Overview/General-capabilities-in-theAustralian-Curriculum). Which of the organisers from The New Basics and The Essential Learning
Framework are reflected in the General Capabilities?
For further information on each initiative go to:
• http://www.aldridgeshs.eq.edu.au/sose/programs/sose/curriculumorg.pdf
• http://web.education.unimelb.ed u.au/curriculumpoliciesproject/Reports/download/Tas-2005-
Essentiallearni ngsFrameworkl-2002.pdf
• Victorian Essential Learning Standards: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/129125/20110905-
1708/vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/overview/values.html
2. Go to the following websites and read the short criticisms of the New Basics and the Essential
Learning Framework. How do th~ criticisms compare?
• New Basics: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/3611/
• At http://www.curriculum.e~u.au/leader/ search ‘curriculum change in Tasmania’ to find
‘Looking at curriculum change in Tasmania: will essential learnings promote successful reform?’.
Meanwhile in the classroom
In recent decades curriculum integration, in many Australian primary schools, has
meant one thing – organising learning into themes. These thematic units were often
a hodge-podge of activities organised around a topic. ‘Dinosaurs’ was a popular
325
PART 4 ACROSS THE CURRICULUM: INTEGRATION AND PRIORITIES
thematic topic in the early years and ‘Antarctica’ was a favourite in upper primary
school classrooms. Although this was seen as a way to make teaching and learning
more cohesive, themes often failed to develop important concepts, understandings
and processes central to learning in areas of learning including Social Studies/
Studies of Society and Environment (and the various other names for this learning
area in primary schools over the years and around the country). Thematic units were
often shallow and the links between subject areas were tenuous (Hamston and
Murdoch, 1996; Jacobs, 1989; Ward, 1996).
Later, more rigorous approaches to curriculum integration in the primary school
were developed and promoted by educators and education authorities. In their
popular 1996 book, Integrating Socially, Melbourne academics Hamston and
Murdoch provided mud~ needed advice for primary school teachers wanting to
integrate effectively. Table 15.1, from their book, describes the major faults of
thematic units as widely practised at the time and proposed how to integrate using
an inquiry approach in social education.
326
Table 15.1 Thematic versus inquiry-based integrated units from Hamstbn and Murdoch
Thematic units
Topics are often selected at random and are
based on language themes (colour, pirates,
fantasy, etc.). Topic selection is often process
rather than content driven.
Activities are often only loosely linked to the
topic: a transport theme may involve students
in making a graph of the different coloured cars
in the car park. The learning about transport
itself is minimal.
Attempts are made to include every area of the
curriculum in each theme, often resulting in
forced rather than genuine links. The teacher
may ask, for example, How can I make maths fit
into this theme?
There is no necessary sequence of activities.
They tend to be discrete and unconnected and
are able to be carried out in random order.
Themes are driven by the various separate
curriculum areas: English and mathematics
become the focus rather than learning about
the social world.
Inquiry-based integrated units
Topics are selected to develop significant
understandings about society. This content
‘drives’ the unit. Processes are used in a
meaningful context. Topics are seen as vehicles
for the gradual development of big ideas about
society.
Activities are designed to develop planned
understandings about the topic. The teacher
asks: How will this activity help to develop and
challenge students’ understandings about this
topic?
The study of society drives the teacher’s
planning and forms the content of the unit.
Maths, language, art and other process areas are
selected according to the extent to which they
can be purposefully used by the learner. The
students and teacher ask, for example, What is
the most effective way we could present this
data?
Activities are developed along an inquiry model
of teaching and learning. Units move through a
broad sequence of stages.
The unit merges areas of the curriculum
together in purposeful ways.
CHAPTER 15 INTEGRATING THE CURRICULUM
Themes are often planned as the whole
classroom program: all or most activities done
during the course of the week are under the
umbrella of one topic.
Student choice and input may be very limited
within a theme; activities are planned and
directed by the teacher. On the other hand,
some thematic approaches take the opposite
view and build the activities almost entirely
around student interest, often including the
choice of topic itself.
Integrated units are a significant part of the
classroom program. Other regular routines will
continue to operate alongside them and there
will be times when the teacher will ‘step out’ of
the unit to focus on a particular skill or concept
or other curriculum area.
Teachers consider both the interests and needs
of students in their planning. A degree of choice
exists for the learner but this is negotiated with
other students and with the teacher.
Source: Hamston and Murdoch, 1996, p. 11.
MODELS OF INTEGRATION
Over the years, various interpretations or models of curriculum integration have
been proposed and they all carry with them certain underlying assumptions about
teaching and learning, some of which have been mentioned in the previous section.
For beginning teachers, or even experienced ones, the array of models of curriculum
integration and the terminology used to describe them can be confusing.
A number of educational researchers have located various approaches to
integration on continua. One example of this can be found in Figure 15.1. This
straightforward continuum illustrates the scope of curriculum integration from
within subject areas to beyond subject areas – although many educators probably
think of integration as being between subjects.
Figure 15.1 The scope of curriculum integration
Within
Subject
Areas
lntradisciplinary Multidisciplinary
Between
Subject
Areas
l
Interdisciplinary
Beyond
Subject
Areas
Transdisciplinary
Source: Alberta Education, 2007
ACTIVITY 15.3 REFLECT ON THIS
What do you think is the difference between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary? Use a dictionary
to check your understanding. How would you explain the difference in your own words?
Like the Alberta Education continuum, Fogarty (1991) scopes integration broadly
in the same three bands – within, across and beyond subjects or disciplines.
327
PART 4 ACROSS THE CURRICULUM, INTEGRATION AND PRIORITIES
Interestingly, her naming of the latter band, however, places the focus firmly on the
learner rather than the content to be learned (see Figure 15.2). Within each of the
three bands she makes further distinctions. For example, in the ‘within single
disciplines’ band she identifies three different ways integration may take place. In
the Fragmented model, ‘topics from two areas [are] only occasionally related
intentionally.’ In the Connected model, ‘explicit connections [are made] within each
subject area – connecting one topic, one skill, one concept to the next; connecting
one day’s work, or even one semester’s ideas, to the next’. Finally in this band
Fogarty identifies ‘Nested integration [which] takes advantage of natural
combinations. For example…. a lesson on the circulatory system could target the
concept of systems, as well as facts and understandings of the circulatory system in
particular’ (Fogarty, 1991).
Figure 15.2 Fogarty’s continuum of curriculum integration
Fragmented Connected Nested : Sequenced
Within single
disciplines
Shared Webbed Threaded
Across several
disciplines
ACTIVITY 15.4 TAKE. THIS FURTHER
Integrated : Immersed Networked
: Within and across
learners
Source: Fogarty, 1991
Access Fogarty’s model at http://www.ascd.org/. Search for ‘fogarty’ to find the document ‘Ten ways
to integrate curriculum’.
Read the short description and example of each approach. In the Across Several Disciplines band,
which models would be considered multidisciplinary and which interdisciplinary?
Wallace et al. (2005) suggest that, while the six forms of curriculum integration
in their model ‘are broadly sequenced from subjects taught separately to subjects
taught together, it should be emphasized that no particular hierarchy is intended
in this ordering’ (see Figure 15.3). This advice is probably sensibly applied to the
other models too. Any one of the approaches described on any one of the continua
may be the most appropriate way to integrate in a particular situation at any
one time.
328
ACTIVITY 15.5 DISCUSS AND DECIDE
When viewed together the three continua share some characteristics. How would you explain the
relationships among the three continua?
CHAPTER 15 INTEGRATING THE CURRICULUM
Figure 15.3 Wallace, Venville and Rennie’s approach to curriculum integration
Subjects taught
separately
411 • together Subjects taught

Source: Wallace et al., in Pendergast and Bahr, 2010, pp. 188-204
Integration within a discipline
As Fogarty suggests, when knowledge and skills are connected within one subject,
integration is happening. For example, ‘The Australian Curriculum: History is
organised into two interrelated strands: Historical Knowledge and Understanding
and Historical Skills’ (ACARA, 2013a, p. 5). f3 In practical terms, ‘The two strands
are integrated in the development of a teaching and learning program. The
Historical Knowledge and Understanding strand provides the contexts through
which particular skills are to be developed’ (ACARA, 2013a, p. 5). 0
Furthermore the Historical Knowledge and Understanding strand is in itself an
integration of knowledge (context) and understanding (concept). As the document
explains, ‘This strand explores key concepts for developing historical understanding,
such as evidence, continuity and change, cause and effect, significance, perspectives,
empathy and contestability’ (ACARA, 2013a, p. 5). f3
For example in Year 1, the context for learning is ‘Present and Past Family Life’
(ACARA, 2013a, p. 20). f3 The concept ‘change and continuity’ is integrated with
this context as seen in the content descriptor: ‘Differences in family structures and
roles today, and how these have changed or remained the same over time
(ACHHK028)’ (ACARA, 2013a, p. 20). f3
Another way to view integration within a discipline occurs when a teacher connects
a topic, skill or concept learned on one day or in one unit with another learned earlier
in the same discipline. This connection is made deliberately by the teacher ‘rather than
assuming that students will automatically understand the connections’ (Fogarty, 1999).
I
ACT.IVITY 15.6 DISClJ;i~AND DECIDE
Read through the following content descriptors from the Australian Curriculum: History. Can you
identify the context and the concept integrated in each one?
a From Year 2: The history of a significant person, building or site or part of the natural environment
in the local community and what it reveals about the past. {ACHHK044)
®
329
PART 4 ACROSS THE CURRICULUM: INTEGRATION AND PRIORITIES
b From Year 4: The nature of contact between Aboriginal people and/or Torres Strait Islanders and
others, for example the Macassans and the Europeans, and the effects of these interactions on, for
example families and the environment. (ACHHK080)
c From Year 6: Experiences of Australian democracy and citizenship, including the status and rights
of Aboriginal people and/or Torres Strait Islanders, migrants, women and children. (ACHHK114)
Can you find content descriptors in the Australian Curriculum: History that don’t appear to have an
obvious conceptual focus?
Integration across disciplines
Integration across or between subjects is probably what most teachers think of when
considering curriculum integration. Within this broad descriptor there are diverse
ways of conceptualising integration.
That which Fogarty (1991) calls ‘sequenced’, Wallace, Venville and Rennie (2005)
call ‘synchronised’. This approach simply requires teachers to arrange units, topics
or skills in more than one subject area so that like or related material is taught
concurrently.
The ‘shared’ (Fogarty) or ‘cross-curricular’ (Wallace, Venville and Rennie)
approach could be described as multidisciplinary. While subjects remain distinct,
student learning may be enhanced by the integration of common skills. For example,
the graphing skills learned in maths could be applied in geography. This approach
could also include infusing a skill or attitude across the curriculum. For example, ICT
skills could be integrated into every discipline. The same could be said for each of
the General Capabilities and Cross-curriculum Priorities in the Australian
Curriculum.
Also multidisciplinary in nature is Wallace, Venville and Rennie’s ‘thematic’
approach. Like Fogarty’s ‘webbed’ approach, teachers choose a topic, theme, issue or
big idea to integrate subject matter. For example, a Year 4 unit on human rights could
draw from history (the effect colonisation had on Indigenous peoples), geography
(religious diversity in Australia today) and civics and citizenship (rights and
responsibilities). In each case the work undertaken in history, geography and civics
and citizenship is linked to or focused on the theme while still working towards the
achievement standards required in each subject for a particular year level.
Fogarty’s ‘threaded’ and ‘integrated’ approaches are interdisciplinary in nature.
The curriculum is organised around common learning from a number of subjects.
The common learning, which may be a skill or a concept, supersedes subject matter
content. In an example of a ‘threaded’ approach, Fogarty suggests that the skill of
‘prediction’ could be the thread that binds together maths (estimation), geography
(forecast), science (hypothesis) and English (anticipation in narratives). Fogarty’s
‘integrated’ approach blends disciplines by finding overlapping skills and concepts in
each. This approach calls for a thoughtful mapping of common knowledge, concepts
and skills across a number of subjects. These overlaps may suggest a number of
possible topics, themes, issues or big ideas.
330
CHAPTER 15 INTEGRATING THE CURRICULUM
For example, consider the following content descriptors from the Australian
Curriculum for Year 6 science and history:
Important contributions to the advancement of Science have been made by
people from a range of cultures (ACSHE099) (ACARA, 2013b, p. 58). 0
The contribution of individuals and groups, including Aboriginal people and/or
Torres Strait Islanders and migrants, to the development of Australian society,
for example in areas such as economy, education, science, the arts, sport
(ACHHK116) (ACARA, 2013a, p. 41). C)
You can see how easy it can be to blur subject boundaries. A complete mapping of
all Year 6 curricula may reveal further knowledge, concepts and skills to integrate
meaningfully into this study. Teachers can then guide students to develop and apply
this interdisciplinary knowledge.
ACTIVITY 15.7 TAKE THIS FURTHER
Read through the Year 6 content descriptors from Australian Curriculum. Access your Year 6 state-based
curriculum for subject areas not yet developed nationally. Can you identify any other knowledge,
concepts or skills that could be meaningfully integrated? Be advised that sometimes less is more.
Integration beyond disciplines
Transdisciplinary approaches to curriculum integration start with issues, problems
or concerns rather than curriculum documents. The issue to be explored is typically
negotiated with or initiated by students. It could be ‘project–based’ or ‘communityfocused’ (Wallace et al., 2005), allowing students to tackle a problem and answer
open-ended questions about real world issues. These approaches place less emphasis
on subject areas, and knowledge and skills are seen as interconnected and
interdependent. However, ‘the reality of covering standards … in distinct subject
areas quickly brings them back to the disciplines’ (Drake and Burns, 2004). So after
negotiating the focus for student inquiry, teachers using this approach need to use a
backward design process to map the curriculum connections.
James Beane (1997), an influential advocate of curriculum integration, has
developed a model of curriculum integration which has been adopted and adapted by
many educators, particularly in the middle years of schooling. Central to his model (see
Figure 15.4) is the curriculum theme, derived from a negotiation process facilitated by
teachers. The curriculum theme merges students’ personal concerns with their
concerns about the world. For example, if peer conflict was an important personal issue
for students and global conflict was a societal or world concern held by students, an
appropriate curriculum theme to investigate might be conflict resolution. In order for
respectful and meaningful negotiation to take place Beane advocates a classroom
climate that embraces democracy, dignity and diversity. Beane also proposes that
students bring four kinds of knowledge to the negotiation and investigation process
which influence and inform their participation and learning. These are:
1. Personal – addressing the self concerns of students
2. Social – addressing societal and world issues
331
PART 4 ACROSS THE CURRICULUM: INTEGRATION AND PRIORITIES
Figure 15.4 Beane’s approach to curriculum integration
Self/Personal
Concerns
Social/World
Concerns
Source: The above image is from Beane, James A., Curriculum Integration: Designing the Core ofDemocratic
Education, Teachers College Press: New York, 1997, p. 49. Used with permission of the author. See also, Beane,
James A., A Middle Years Curriculum: From Rhetoric to Reality, Hawker Brownlow, 2006.
3. Explanatory – content that names, describes, explains and interprets
4. Technical – ways of investigating, communicating, analysing and expressing.
Beane does not discount the disciplines and recognises them as one possible
source for the development of themes rather than the only one. Disciplines are seen
as a tool to blend traditional information with real life. As Beane (not dated) says,
‘knowledge is drawn from the traditional disciplines [but] students move from
activity to activity, or project to project, rather than from subject to subject during
the school day’.
332
ACTIVITY 15.8 TAKE THIS FURTHER
Access the Project Based Learning (PBL) site at the Buck Institute for Education and watch the short
video at http://www.bie.org/videos/video/project_based_learning_explained.
Does the video persuade you to want to try using PBL? Discuss your response to these ideas with
a colleague.
To read more about PBL access this brief introduction on the same site as the video: http://
www.bie.org/about/what_is_pbl.
The final words in this section about models of curriculum integration belong to
Beane (2001). He wisely says, ‘Instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of the
perfect model of curriculum integration, consider the goal: a democratic education
that provides real learning opportunities and respect for the great diversity of
human needs’.
CHAPTER 15 INTEGRATING THE CURRICULUM
INTEGRATION AND THE AUSTRALIAN
CURRICULUM
In addition to the integration within subjects discussed earlier there are many
opportunities for curriculum integration across Australian Curriculum subjects,
including History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship and Economics and Business.
The Australian Curriculum: History refers only to English, Science and
Mathematics – the three other Phase 1 subjects – when describing ‘links’. For
example, it states that ‘Strong connections exist between English and history, and
literacy is essential to historical understanding’ (ACARA, 2013a, p. 14). f3 And,
when making links to mathematics, states that ‘Much of the evidence and reasoning
in historical understanding is quantitative: chronology, demography, economic
activity, changes in the movement of peoples and in the size and reach of
institutions. All of these call for an appreciation of numerical scale and proportion
(ACARA, 2013a, p. 14). f3 Links between History and Science are highlighted: ‘The
history of invention and discovery provides students with an awareness of the pace
of scientific and technological development over time and its implications for the
future. An understanding of the past provides opportunities to engage in an
informed manner in present debates about, for example, the ethical use of
technology and the management of the environment’ (ACARA, 2013a, p. 14). f3
Although the History curriculum does not mention Geography, Citizenship or
Economics by name, the History content does refer to geographical, citizenship and
economic phenomena – an encouragement to integrate knowledge from those
subjects. As is the case with all subjects, the Australian Curriculum: History describes
the way the General Capabilities and Cross-curriculum Priorities are embedded and
these describe common con cepts and skills shared by all Australian Curriculum
subjects.
While the Australian Curriculum: Geography also describes how the General
Capabilities and Cross-curriculum Priorities are integrated into the curriculum, it
stresses the importance of using concepts as integrating devices across and beyond
disciplines, declaring that ‘Geography integrates knowledge from the natural sciences,
social sciences and humanities to build a holistic understanding of the world. Students
learn to question why the world is the way it is, reflect on their relationships with and
responsibilities for that world, and propose actions designed to shape a socially just
and sustainable future (ACARA, 2013c, p. 4). f3 In addition, the document
emphasises the ways in which concepts can integrate content within the subject itself,
for example: ‘The Australian Curriculum: Geography identifies the concepts of place,
space, environment, interconnection, sustainability, scale and change, as integral to
the development of geographical understanding. These are high level ideas or ways of
thinking that can be applied across the subject to identify a question, guide an
investigation, organise information, suggest an explanation or assist decision-making.
They are the key ideas involved in teaching students to think geographically’ (ACARA,
2013c, p. 7). f3
333
PART 4 ACROSS THE CURRICULUM: INTEGRATION AND PRIORITIES
The Civics and Citizenship Shape paper made a number of very strong statements
about integration stating that ‘The Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship will
present an opportunity to build on strong synergies with particular humanities and
social sciences subjects as well as other learning areas and subjects. The content of the
Civics and Citizenship curriculum will take into account related content from other
Australian Curriculum subjects, to ensure that unnecessary repetition is avoided and
links and potential for integration are maximised’ (ACARA, 2012a, p. 21). The
document went on to say that this was particularly the case in Years 5-6 and Years
9-10 history, but also in geography, economics and business and English. In addition,
the Shape paper states that ‘A further key feature of the Civics and Citizenship
curriculum will be the links made, in conjunction with other learning areas and
subjects, with a range of experiences outside the school’ (ACARA, 2012a, p. 21).
Perhaps unexpectedly, all such encouragement of integration is missing from the
subsequent Dra~ Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship (ACARA, 2013d). There
are no references to other subject areas, and the only reference to integration is
about integrating the strands of ‘Civics’ and ‘Citizenship’ (ACARA, 2013d, p. 6).
However, nothing should discourage teachers from pursuing the integrating advice
of the Shape paper when implementing the final curriculum document.
The situation with Economics and Business is very similar. The Shape of the
Australian Curriculum: Economics and Business (ACARA, 2012b) stated ‘Economics and
Business is included in the Humanities and Social Sciences learning area, and there
are opportunities to connect and build on related content in History, Geography,
and Civics and Citizenship. There are opportunities to connect with the knowledge
and skills that students develop in other learning areas such as: Health and Physical
Education, for example; informed consumer decision-making regarding healthy
lifestyle choices; Mathematics, for example calculating interest rates, rates of return;
and Technologies, for example the way in which technology is transforming work
and business environments. The content of the Economics and Business curriculum
will avoid unnecessary repetition and maximise the potential for integration’
(ACARA, 2012b, p. 24). However, the subsequent Draft Australian Curriculum:
Economics and Business (ACARA, 2013e) makes no reference to links with other
subjects, makes one reference to ‘global citizenship (p. 15) and refers to integration
only in terms of integrating the Economics and Business strands. As with Civics and
Citizenship, teachers will find the most important advice on integration in the
formative Shape paper rather than in the subsequent draft curriculum.
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A major opportunity for integration is signalled in the ACARA statement that
‘General capabilities comprise an integrated and interconnected set of knowledge,
skills, behaviours and dispositions that students develop and use in their learning
across the curriculum, in co-curricular programs and in their lives outside school’
(ACARA, 2013f, p. 5). 0 The General Capabilities – shared by all Australian
Curriculum subjects – are powerful tools for bringing those subjects together in
focused curriculum experiences. Suggestions for integrating the General Capabilities
and Cross-curriculum Priorities in history, geography, civics and citizenship and
economics and business can be found in relevant subject chapters in this book.