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The Australian Curriculum identifies Intercultural understanding as a general capability that all students should develop. It aims to enhance skills in three areas:
In terms of the History curriculum:
…students learn about the perspectives, beliefs and values of people, past and present, and the importance of understanding their own and others' histories. This includes learning about the origins and development of Australia’s national identity and the forging of its cultural heritage.
From the Australian Curriculum: History – general capabilities.
Curriculum content which can assist with intercultural understanding is identified – and therefore searchable – in the Australian Curriculum: History.
The Intercultural understanding learning continuum shows how students are expected to progress with respect to the organising elements. There are six levels corresponding to Foundation, Year 2, Year 4, Year 6, Year 8 and Year 10.
Note: Intercultural understanding in the Australian Curriculum suggests capabilities that students would typically display at the culmination of various levels of schooling. The levels in this chart relate to the following years of schooling.
Identifying the ways that globalisation and immigration from the Asia region have shaped the Australian community (Yr.10), as in Vietnam War 1962–75
Investigating how Genghis Khan treated conquered peoples and his motivations for this (Yr.8), as in Genghis Khan
Video of Deborah Henderson, associate professor at Queensland University of Technology, discussing intercultural understanding in History.
Discover how schools develop students intercultural understanding through English and History in the research report What Works 3.
The Intercultural understanding toolkit supports how to improve capacity for intercultural understanding, how it is addressed across all learning areas and examples of activities that can be used in schools.
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