UniSA brings Indigenous focus to national literature survey
by Linda Hein
UniSA’s David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and
Research (DUCIER) will participate in the Australian Literature
Teaching Survey, bringing an Indigenous focus to the $100,000,
year-long audit of Australian literature teaching.
With colleagues at the Universities of Tasmania and Queensland, UniSA researchers will systematically survey the current and recent-past teaching of Australian literature in both national and international contexts by examining subjects and texts and surveying teachers.
Lecturer in Australian Studies at DUCIER and project member, Dr Alice Healy (pictured) said the project was prompted by the ongoing national debate about the study of Australian literature in schools and universities.
"We are hoping this project will reveal the extent to which Australian literature is used in traditional literary studies contexts, as well as interdisciplinary contexts like Australian history, Aboriginal studies and so on.
"Indigenous writing in all its diversity continues to make an important contribution to Australian literature and history, and therefore to education.
"As a member of DUCIER, I am particularly interested in discovering how Indigenous literature is taught in various contexts, as well as the project’s wider aim of auditing Australian literature courses."
Dr Healy said that in the long term the project would aim to provide a forum for scholarship in teaching Australian literature through online resources and a journal of Australian Literature Education, and ultimately enhance and sustain a new framework for teaching of Australian literature in upper secondary schools and tertiary institutions.
The 12-month project is being funded through the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (formerly the Carrick Institute for Teaching and Learning) and is an extension of an initial audit driven by the Executive Committee of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature.
The project is being led by the University of Tasmania and will link into resources already provided through the Australian Research Council funded gateway project AustLit: The Resource for Australian literature, run by project partner University of Queensland.
If you’d like to be involved in the survey, please contact Alice Healy at DUCIER on+61 8 8302 9280.