Refusing Reconciliation in Indigenous Curriculum

In this chapter, we trouble the presumed connection between greater representation of Indigenous content in the Australian Curriculum and the stated objectives that such representation is intended to achieve; increased Indigenous student performance and reconciliation for all students. We adopt the lens of settler colonial theory to explore the history of calls for increased Indigenous representation in the Curriculum and describe the curriculum as a settler tool that reinforces notions of separation and discrimination masquerading as reconciliation. We contend that without critical decolonisation of curriculum structures, and ways in which the curriculum positions knowledges, separates and breaks it apart into disciplinary fields, and makes invisible Indigenous learners in the Australian education space, teachers are unsupported to develop a coherent pedagogical narrative about Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies and worldviews and work with these for productive and successful outcomes for Indigenous students.