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This article considers the impact of competing knowledge structures in teaching Australian Indigenous history to undergraduate university students and the possibilities of collaborative teaching in this space.

The authors, one Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal, draw on a history of collaborative teaching that stretches over more than a decade, bringing together conceptual reflective work and empirical data from a 5-year project working with Australian university students in an introductory-level Aboriginal history subject.

It argues that teaching this subject area in ways which are culturally safe for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students, and which resist knowledge structures associated with colonial ways of conveying history, is not only about content but also about building learning spaces that encourage students to decolonise their relationships with Australian history.

This article considers collaborative approaches to knowledge transmission in the university history classroom as an act of decolonising knowledge spaces rather than as a model of reconciliation.

The purpose of the paper is to analyse non‐indigenous student resistance to indigenous history and to improve non‐indigenous students’ engagement with indigenous history.

The paper, based on praxis, is a theoretical discussion of the reasons for non‐indigenous student resistance to indigenous history.

The paper argues that non‐indigenous imaginings of national self creates indigenous history into a “un‐history” (a history that could not be). The paper suggests non‐indigenous teachers of indigenous history may undertake a broader perspective to prepare students for indigenous history, including fostering a critical appreciation of histiography, Australian colonial art, literature and popular culture, to enable a critical understanding of the national imagining of Australians (as non‐indigenous) in order to enable engagement with indigenous history.

The paper's focus and findings do not presume relevance to indigenous educators of indigenous history, as previous research has shown non‐indigenous students’ reactions to an indigenous educator may differ from an to a non‐indigenous educator.

The paper moves beyond discussions about content of indigenous history to issues of resistance and engagement found amongst non‐indigenous students with regard to indigenous history. The paper suggests a twenty‐first century political approach where there is non‐indigenous ownership of the shared history in (indigenous) Australia history, enabling indigenous history to move from the periphery to the centre of Australian colonial history.

The purpose of this article is to introduce the themed section of History of Education Review on “The History of Knowledge and the History of Education”, comprising four empirical articles that together seek to bring the history of education into fuller dialogue with the approaches and methods of the nascent field of the history of knowledge.

This introductory article provides a broad overview of the history of knowledge for the benefit of historians of education, introduces the four themed section articles that follow, and draws out some of their overarching themes and concepts.

The history of knowledge concept of “arenas of knowledge” emerges as generative across the themed section. Authors also engage with problems of the legitimacy of knowledges, and with pedagogy as practice. In addition, focusing on colonial and postcolonial contexts raises reflexive questions about history of knowledge approaches that have so far largely been developed in European and North American scholarship.

The history of education has not previously been strongly represented among the fields that have gone into the formation of the history of knowledge as a synthetic, interdisciplinary approach to historical studies. Nor have historians of education much engaged with its distinguishing concepts and methodologies. The themed section also extends the history of knowledge itself through its strong focus on colonial and postcolonial histories.

Latin America offers a unique opportunity to reimagine educational leadership through its complex and intersectional frameworks where rematriation movements and liberatory pedagogies are the driving forces for “postponing the end of the world,” as proposed by Ailton Krenak (2020). While currently Latin American democracies are less than ideal as environmental and Indigenous initiatives have been directly attacked by ultraconservative politics, there are consistent foundations that deepen in each context by leading the way to a hopeful future. These foundations are the loud voices in the Latin American continent and they are multilingually expressed in Quechua, Guarani, Aymara, and more, as is also immersed in critical literacies; in processes of conscientização; experienced in the arts and the theater of the Oppressed; and loudly coming from the slums and the lungs of women like Mercedes Sosa, and many more. These are the absolute breakthroughs of hope we will continue to listen, follow, work with, and feel. Such breakthroughs are the pedagogies and the educational leadership of hope across Latin America, a region which has pushed to center on Indigenous mobilization and guidance.

In this qualitative case study, we examine pre-service teachers’ understandings’ of history as narrative. This analysis specifically explores the kinds of new historical narratives pre-service teachers create as a result of purposeful secondary social studies methods instruction that juxtaposes traditional narratives (e.g. individual achievement and motivation) and alternative narratives (e.g. those attentive to empathy and race, class, and gender) in an effort to help future teachers understand the nature of critical historical inquiry. In examining the understandings and initial efforts of young secondary social studies teachers, the study concludes that while troubling the traditional narrative is viable and likely event, the challenges of developing critical historical inquiry are clear and persistent.

The aim of this chapter is to critically analyse multiple stakeholders’ self-perceptions of the value, nature, success and impact of core Aboriginal Studies subjects in primary teacher education university courses.

Participants were drawn from two universities in New South Wales which taught a core Aboriginal Studies subject as part of their primary teacher education degree. The methodology was informed by Yin’s (2003) multiple-case study replication design. This replication presents a picture of the perceptions and events which have impacted on the participants in the study.

The findings have important implications for theory, research and practice. The results of this study demonstrate that core Aboriginal Studies subjects in primary teacher education courses can make a positive difference in changing the perceptions of many pre-service teachers about Aboriginal people.

The purpose of this study was to assemble an evidence-based rationale, which includes the voices of multiple stakeholders, to test the extent to which core Aboriginal Studies subjects in primary teacher education courses are vital to improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal children, advancing reconciliation and creating a more socially just Australian society.

Undertaking professional training through a core Aboriginal Studies subject builds pre-service teachers’ self-concepts, attitudes, commitment, knowledge and skills, and ability and understandings to teach Aboriginal Studies, incorporate Aboriginal perspectives and to be committed to effectively teaching Aboriginal students.

The study supports the need for the inclusion of core Aboriginal Studies subjects in all universities with teacher education courses.

Research on Indigenous students has mostly adopted a deficiency model. In contrast, this study takes an explicitly positive perspective on Indigenous student success by focusing on the active psychological ingredients that facilitate successful learning.

The situating of pimatisiwin as a framework for spatial justice and self-determination aids educators in strengthening their understandings of Indigenous knowledges to support an authentic inclusion of Indigenous students with disabilities. Through the sharing of Canada’s colonial history, and by critically examining the principles of care within special education, the author exposes its relationship with ableism, normalcy, eugenics, and white privilege to show how Indigenous peoples continue to be marginalized in the twenty-first century. This justice work asks educators to shift their perspectives of inclusion and wellness through the insertion of an Indigenous lens, one to help them see and hear the faces and voices of disabled Aboriginal children and their kinships. The chapter discusses the social model of disability, the psychology of Gentle Teaching, Indigenous ethics, and principles of natural laws through the voices of Nehiyawak and other knowledge keepers, in order to suggest an agenda for educators to come to an understanding of an emancipatory and gentle education. Spatial justice and Indigenous epistemologies merge as synergistic, inclusive, and holistic entities, to support Aboriginal children and youth as both they and those who teach learn to celebrate disabled ontologies. The chapter concludes by presenting how Gentle Teaching and Indigenous ways of knowing should be honored in this quest of creating an equitable, caring, and inclusive society for all disabled Indigenous children and youth.

This chapter describes the curriculum for one nine-week unit called “The United States of America and Native America.” This unit was part of a two-year course for students in grades 11 and 12 at a small, independent school in the Southwest. The school began as a US government–sponsored boarding school in the nineteenth century, tasked with assimilating Indigenous children into white US culture. Over the past century the school's mission has evolved significantly. During the nineteenth century, efforts were made to locate and recruit students in far-flung rural (mostly Hispanic) communities in New Mexico without access to a local high school. This effort has since expanded to offering a college preparatory education to local populations, who are less likely to enjoy private school or college educations, and to international students. This chapter gathers research about “decolonizing education” (Brayboy & Lomawaima, 2018; Jacob, 2018; Fryberg & Markus, 2007; and Deyhle & Swisher, 1997; Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014) and considers the extent to which the curriculum is effective for students who identify as Indigenous.

Film has long been an instructional tool in social studies education; however, most research and methods for using film to teach social studies are situated at the secondary level. As such, the purpose of this study was to extend and expand what is known about using film in elementary social studies classrooms. More specifically, this qualitative content analysis study explored how and why elementary pre-service teachers (PSTs) used film clips from Molly of Denali to design critical Indigenous studies lessons. The data offer insight into the possibilities of using film as a strategy to teach anti-oppressive elementary social studies education.

The authors used qualitative content analysis in this study. Data for this study included 17 lesson planning assignments and corresponding written rationales completed by PSTs in an elementary social studies methods course. Data collected as a result of convenience sampling, given both the authors were the instructors of the methods course. To analyze the data, the authors used a multi-step coding process and a combination of inductive and deductive coding.

Grounded in a framework of anti-oppressive and anti-colonial education, PSTs designed elementary social studies lessons that used film clips from Molly of Denali to increase representation, center a counter-narrative and serve as a motivator. PSTs also infused other sources into their lesson plans, thus extending their lessons beyond the film.

Given the lack of research on how film can be used in elementary social studies classrooms, this study fills a void in the literature. Results of this study suggest that similar to the benefits of using film in secondary classrooms, film can be an engaging and motivating source of information for elementary students. Moreover, when used within a critical pedagogical framework like Sabzalian's (2019) critical orientations of Indigenous studies, film can increase representation and teach anti-oppressive counter-narratives in the elementary classroom.