English-medium state schools in New Zealand have been directed to begin implementing the new Aotearoa New Zealand's histories curriculum content from 2023. In response to the draft version of the curriculum document, Bell & Russell (Bell and Russell, "New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies" 57:21-35, 2022) highlighted the…

I use Edward Said's (in: Culture and imperialism, Vintage, 1993) theory, that nations 'are narrations: who owned land, could settle, plan its future, are all stories of imperialism. The history teacher could not only consider 'what to read', but also 'how to read' taking account of the processes of imperialism; of the macro-history of world…

From 2022, New Zealand schools are teaching a new compulsory history curriculum that aims to teach diverse New Zealand histories, while foregrounding the centrality of Maori histories and the impacts of colonisation. The new curriculum will upend a long history of 'forgetting' the nation's contentious and conflictual past, and in particular the…

Compulsory teaching of Aotearoa New Zealand histories has potential to change how this country's young people think and feel about themselves. However, achieving the new curriculum's vision of a more thoughtful and responsible citizenry is unlikely to be straightforward. For Pakeha secondary school students, descendants of European settlers, the…

In this article, two autoethnographies from Australia and New Zealand provide a means of engaging students in difficult histories of colonial nations. The first looks to knowledge as a basis of understanding others, and the second focuses on concepts of empathy and vulnerability as a way of understanding difficult histories. Each of these…

In 2022, New Zealand history will shift from an optional to a compulsory subject across all levels of schooling. Teaching about New Zealand's difficult histories has the potential to reconstitute settler-Indigenous relations to show how historical colonial injustice impacts people today, but it raises questions about whose history will be…

This study investigates the challenges of teaching history to primary school students and the endeavour to develop a board game, supported by educational apps and augmented reality, to enhance the learning experience. The initiative is in response to the New Zealand Ministry of Education's mandate that New Zealand's history must be taught in all…

The Ministry of Education, Teaching Council and other groups aligned with the teaching profession are increasingly acknowledging the impact of racism, yet there is a dearth of research that moves beyond unconscious bias to examine how race is socially constructed in schools. In this paper, we present four autoethnographic accounts from Tracey to…

The challenges of naming a bounded disciplinary body of knowledge for the social sciences has made it difficult to define and clearly articulate 'what counts' for disciplinary learning in school curricula. The shift to 'new' generic skills with an associated autonomy of curriculum content choice and learner-centred approaches has introduced…

Current research into, and definitions of, historical literacy do not adequately acknowledge the cultural backgrounds of indigenous learners across the historical disciplines and levels. Nor do they recognise the vital role of historical literacy in empowering indigenous students. In conversations with teachers of a range of ethnicities and Maori…

In this article I interact with the narratives of five Pakeha (European) secondary school teachers, who choose to teach Aotearoa New Zealand histories including about Te Tiriti o Waitangi at senior level (years 11-13). I highlight characteristics of the active stance adopted by participants towards teaching and learning the difficult histories of…

This article examines a particular incident in the Waikato wars, 1863-4 and its relevance to the newly mandated New Zealand History curriculum. The new curriculum will for the first time make the teaching of local history compulsory in years 1-10. I examine the wide variety of submissions about the content of this curriculum. As the Royal…

This article shares insights from a survey of primary school teachers across the Manawatu-Whanganui region about history teaching at Years 1 to 6. By focusing on the voices of primary teachers, the article aims to fill a gap in public debates about the new Aotearoa New Zealand's histories curriculum so far outweighed by the viewpoints of policy…