Whiteness=politeness: interest-convergence in Australian history textbooks, 1950–2010

ABSTRACT

This paper examines discursive change in Australia from 1950 to 2010 through the lens of critical whiteness studies. Using textbooks as records of dominant narratives, I evaluate discourses of whiteness and Aboriginality in Australian history textbooks over this period of substantial social change. I show that overt discourses of white exceptionalism and Aboriginal deficiency are only present in the earliest decades of my sample. However, these discourses persist in later decades in ‘polite’ forms, maintaining the racial status quo while enabling whites to be positioned favourably. I argue that discursive change only becomes embedded in textbooks if it bolsters the status of whites, evidencing Bell’s thesis of interest-convergence.

KEYWORDS:

• Whiteness
• Australian history
• interest-convergence
• Aboriginality
• discourse
• ignorance

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers who commented on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Robyn Moore is a researcher in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Private Bag 22, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia. Her PhD research was a longitudinal analysis of performances of whiteness in Australia. She employs an intersectional lens to examine normalised privilege and disadvantage, particularly with regard to race and gender.

ORCID

Robyn Moore http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5004-3792

Notes

1 palawa kani does not use capitalisation.

Additional information

Funding

Publication was assisted by a grant from the Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of Tasmania.