Research Focus

Textbooks may look like simple learning tools, but what appears on their pages is shaped by a much larger network of decisions. This exhibit explores how curriculum reform, government policy, and publishing practices in Australia and New Zealand from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century influenced what children were expected to read, learn, and understand at school.

Across this period, educational ideas gradually shifted from basic literacy, discipline, and rote learning towards Nature Study and broader access to free general education. Learning increasingly emphasised observation, practical experience, and everyday surroundings. At the same time, governments shaped what knowledge could enter classrooms through education systems, curricula, and publication regulations. Whitcombe & Tombs became part of this system by responding to local curricula, working with educators and authors, and producing materials for local contexts.

Exhibition Experience

In the exhibit, “opening the archive” is our central metaphor. Whitcombe & Tombs publications are the visible outcomes, while the educational reforms, government policies, key events, and people behind them are often less visible. Through semi-transparent layers of images and text, we bring these hidden traces of decision-making to the surface. Visitors are invited to come closer, shift their perspective, and ask: Who decided what children should learn, and how were those decisions made?