Teacher guide The 1967 referendum

TLF ID M021184

This resource (an ‘education pack’) is a sequenced series of teaching/learning activities about the 1967 referendum to amend or repeal sections of the Australian Constitution that discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Intended for teachers, the 13-page pdf resource focuses mainly on the 40th anniversary of the referendum in 2007. It is introduced by background notes and organised in three main sections: Early Years; Primary Years; and Middle Years. Each section contains inquiry questions, detailed teaching suggestions and lists of resources. The Middle Years section also contains assessment strategies and suggested ways in which students can demonstrate achievement. The education pack closes with an extensive resource list and a statement about Reconciliation.





Educational details

Educational value
  • This is a very useful resource for studies of the 1967 referendum in the curriculum contexts of humanities and social sciences (HASS), civics and citizenship, and history. In HASS the teaching/learning activities are relevant to content descriptions in years 6, 7 and 10 referring to the experiences of Australian democracy and citizenship, including the status and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (year 6).
  • The main thrust of the Middle Years section is civics and citizenship and here it is particularly relevant to the knowledge and understanding content description about the process for constitutional change through a referendum and the skills content descriptions about identifying, gathering and sorting information and ideas from a range of sources, and presenting evidence-based civics and citizenship arguments using subject-specific language.
  • Although intended for years 6 to 9, the Middle Years section has considerable value for the Rights and freedoms (1945 - the present day) case study in year 10 history, particularly for the content description that refers, inter alia, to the significance of 1967 Referendum and Reconciliation for the civil rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
  • The pedagogical and assessment strategies set out in the resource are sound and age-appropriate. Although most of the strategies focus on the 40th anniversary of the referendum, this does not in any way diminish their worth. They are easily adaptable to any anniversary of Australia's most successful referendum to date.
Year level

6; 7; 8; 9; 10

Other details

Contributors
  • Contributor
  • Name: Education Services Australia
  • Organization: Education Services Australia
  • Description: Data manager
  • Address: VIC, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au/
  • Copyright Holder
  • Name: Reconciliation South Australia
  • Organization: Reconciliation South Australia
  • URL: www.reconciliationsa.org.au
  • Publisher
  • Name: Reconciliation South Australia
  • Organization: Reconciliation South Australia
  • Description: Publisher
  • URL: www.reconciliationsa.org.au
  • Resource metadata contributed by
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organisation: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: www.esa.edu.au
Access profile
  • Unknown
Learning Resource Type
  • Online
Rights
  • © Reconciliation South Australia Inc, unless otherwise indicated. Unless otherwise indicated, this material may be used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0. Third-party material is explicitly excluded from the Creative Commons licence.