DrRebecca Cairns

My curriculum inquiry research investigates how we do curriculum. It focuses on how curriculum gets made and mediated by a range of curriculum actors across contexts. In other words, it examines the complex practices of people and organisations and how these curriculum actors engage with curriculum discourses, texts and spaces. Exploring the intersection of history education, Asia-related education and decolonising approaches is central to this work. 

This research is distinctive because it provides insight into the ways contemporary and historical socio-political conditions shape curriculum practices and education policy. It brings much needed socio-historical understandings of curriculum making practices to the often highly politicised debates around the relationship between curriculum policy, public policy, historical narratives and socio-cultural change. 

My co-authored monograph, The Asia literacy dilemma: a curriculum perspective (Cairns & Weinmann, 2023), makes an innovative contribution to long-standing global and national debates about Asia-related learning and teaching. The co-edited Decolonising Australian history education: fresh perspectives from beyond the ‘history wars’ (Cairns, Fricker & Weuffen Eds., 2024) is the first of its kind in Australia. The research-informed strategies showcased in the book provide guidance on applied decolonising approaches, providing pre- and in-service teachers, in all education contexts, an essential resource for navigating the decolonisation of Australian history education.