Is the overall explanatory framework of history in Australia relentlessly secular?
The National Council for History Standards (USA 1994) standards do not require that students be made aware of religious interpretations of history as the working out of Gods purposes. It is the conceptual categories used by historians that subtly but substantially influence students interpretation of history. As a result, the religious ideas and values that students encounter in the study of history will lack plausibility because the overall explanatory framework remains so relentlessly secular. Nord has argued that it is incumbent of history teachers and texts to make students aware of – and therefore able to think critically about – alternative (religious) ways of making sense of history. (Nord 1995 p385-6) It is important that students recognise that practical moral judgements are not made in a cultural vacuum; students need not construct anew a moral world for themselves. They should recognise the extent to which their identities are embedded in historical traditions and see how pr
