Illusions of consensus : the development of the 1998 New South Wales mandatory secondary history syllabus

This article analyses the relationship between the perspectives of stakeholders involved in the development of the 1998 New South Wales Stages 4-5 History syllabus. It examined four key issues that emerged in the debates about history education during the review and found that stakeholdersââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ views diverged significantly on three of these issues. While loose coalitions formed around particular issues, stakeholders provided different rationales for their positions, and coalitions re-formed on other debates. The analysis highlights the divergence between stakeholders, and between the Australian Commonwealth and State governments and stakeholders, on the desirable content and goals of history education. The findings indicate that consultation might not produce consensus, and that even the appearance of consensus can be grounded in substantively and philosophically different premises. In practical terms, the findings suggest that if the purpose of consultation is to produce a syllabus that reflects the diverse perspectives held by stakeholders, then the syllabus structure needs to make provision for content options as well as common core areas of study.