Cross-curriculum priorities: Stirring the passions and a work in progress?

The Australian Curriculum is designed with three components: Learning areas, General Capabilities and Cross Curriculum Priorities (CCPs). Three CCPs, comprising one national, one regional and one global; namely, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives, Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and Sustainability, were identified with the assumption that their inclusion in the new curriculum would make learning relevant and engaging to young Australians. This chapter is concerned with the tensions, contradictions and debates about the conceptual knowledge space the CCPs were expected to ‘straddle’ in the intended curriculum. It explores the CCPs in terms of ‘the domain of possibility’ and the ‘domain of certainty’ (see Young, 2012; 2014) and discusses the degree to which they could be considered contemporary, emerging forms of knowledge that enhance the ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young, 2008, 2013) of the disciplines in the Learning areas. The argument is that, at base, the positioning of the CCPs in the Australian Curriculum raise longstanding questions about what knowledge is for and what sort of knowledge is required in the national interest