'Why Study History?': An Examination of Online Statements in Australian Universities 2008-2016

Abstract

The higher education landscape is an increasingly competitive marketplace pitting university against university. Within that setting, individual disciplines must also wave a marketable epistemological flag. Among them is the History discipline, a long-standing traditional cornerstone of many university degrees. The web site for each History school or department is a tool for promoting pathways to possible professional futures for students of History as well as indicating the type of engagement in contemporary historical debates that occurs within the school. This online text reflects the changing state of the discipline, the approaches to the scholarship of teaching and learning in History (History SoTL), the philosophical variations between different universities, the influence of political governance and the evolving trends of marketing strategies. Tracking these shifts offers an insight into both the fluidity, and the formidable traditional underpinnings, of the discipline. In this article I explore the shifting views as demonstrated in the online statements of the History discipline over an eight-year period (2008-16) at sixteen Australian universities. The universities selected are diverse in their characteristics and represent the breadth of higher education in Australia.