Lorna R. McLean

The march to nation: citizenship, education, and the Australian way of life in New South Wales, Australia, 1940s‐1960s

This article probes the dimensions of a newly constructed, modern citizenship within the context of post‐war tensions between a national history that recognised and asserted sexual, racial, and cultural differences and an assimilationist state drive that enshrined one law and one way of life. In particular, I address the question of what we can learn about gender and race relations and their relationship to national identities and citizenship by studying government and educational policies and publications. As recent scholarship on education and citizenship has observed, issues surrounding national identity/identities, citizenship, and education in Australia were critical to state formation from the late 1940s to the 1960s. This research has done much to expand our understanding of the pedagogical and curriculum components of citizenship education and the central role of teachers within the education enterprise. As well, other scholars have informed our understanding of the related processes of post‐war s...