‘Unspeaking the empire’: disentangling the colonial legacy of English education in Australia

ABSTRACT

In post-invasion Australia, English has been a key instrument of colonisation. English education was tasked with producing subjects both loyal to the Australian nation and the British Empire with little recognition given to people from other languages and cultures, least of all First Peoples. Despite Australia now being considered a successful multicultural nation, it remains haunted by the ‘white possessive’ of the Frontier. In this essay we interrogate the tensions between language education policy, curriculum, and practice arising from Australia’s incapacity to come to terms with its colonial wounds: an incapacity starkly revealed by the failure of the 2023 ‘Voice’ to parliament referendum.

KEYWORDS:

• Subject English
• Australia
• English curriculum and colonisation
• decoloniality

Acknowledgments

Tanya and Jack would like to acknowledge that the work for this paper occurred across the unceded lands of the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nations, the Waveroo, and the Wiradjuri people. The development of this paper was supported by a CSU grant to employ Jack as an undergraduate research assistant. Tanya would like to commend Jack for his work ethic and rigour in conducting this work. Tanya would also like to acknowledge the editors of Changing English, and particularly the generosity and patience of Brenton Doecke in working with the authors to further develop and clarify the argument of the essay. This process has embodied the generative praxis of writing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tanya Davies

Tanya Davies is an Anglo-Australian teacher educator in the field of curriculum and pedagogy and English education. She has a background in teaching English, Humanities and Outdoor Education in secondary schools. Her research interests include schooling and the nation, ethics and education, culture and identity, and the role of teacher education in contributing to socially just and equitable education futures. Her PhD project grappled with the ways Australia’s colonial history shapes opportunities for intercultural understanding in different school settings. This has led her to consider how decoloniality might contribute to a re-imagining of subject English under contemporary conditions of cultural and linguistic diversity and towards efforts of reconciliation.

Jack Davis

Jack Davis is a non-Indigenous Australian who has come to education after working 17 years in the wine industry. He was drawn to education by the social justice elements of teaching, including the barriers created by colonialism in education. As such, he has developed a strong interest in troubling the education system, especially subject English, and researching ways in which it can be more inclusive for marginalised groups such as First Nations people.