School: Kurongkurl Katitjin

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Aboriginal Histories of the Present
  • Unit Code

    SWK2111
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    2
  • Credit Points

    15
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
    Online
  • Unit Coordinator

    Mr Kenneth John HAYWARD

Description

The unit examines the experiences of Aboriginal peoples since invasion and colonisation, using the notion of whiteness to understand the way in which history is contested and discursive. The unit analyses the history of dispossession, resistance, adaptation and survival of Aboriginal people in Australia, tracking these experiences against a backdrop of historical events. The unit will examine the historical and contemporary nature of oppression and resistance as reflecting power inequities between groups.

Non Standard Timetable Requirements

Students undertaking this unit in the online mode are required to attend a 5-day Residential on the Mount Lawley Campus to pass the unit. The unit content is compacted into a shorter study period of seven weeks for the online students.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Analyse the historical and contemporary nature and impact of colonisation, discrimination and oppression.
  2. Describe and analyse whiteness as a construct which shapes the dominant ideas about Australia's social, economic, cultural and political history.
  3. Develop a way of thinking about Australian contemporary society which is based on an understanding of historical events from Indigenous perspectives.
  4. Examine and reflect on the self as a conscious personal and professional actor within the dynamic of ethnic interchanges.
  5. Identify the significance of key events and milestones in Australia's history as they have been influenced, and interpreted, by Aboriginal people.

Unit Content

  1. Contested histories.
  2. Key events and milestones in Australian economic, social and political history.
  3. Resistance as a response to colonisation.
  4. Self as social change agent: opportunities to challenge oppression.
  5. Welfare and human service structures and services as manifestations of a dominant white welfare discourse.
  6. Whiteness as a conceptual framework.

Learning Experience

Students will engage in learning experiences via ECU’s LMS as well as additional ECU learning technologies

Additional Learning Experience Information

Readings, lectures and tutorials, online lectures and learning activities, guest speakers, discussion groups, audiovisual resources, residential for off-campus students.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
PresentationPersonal stories30%
Case StudyCase Study on Cultural Competency50%
EssayResearch Essay20%
ONLINE
TypeDescriptionValue
PresentationPersonal stories30%
ReviewBiographies50%
EssayResearch Essay20%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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