Holidaying to assimilation: Beth Marsden, ‘Media Representations of School Holiday Programmes for Aboriginal Children in 1950s and 1960s Australia’, History of Education, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Holidaying to assimilation: Beth Marsden, ‘Media Representations of School Holiday Programmes for Aboriginal Children in 1950s and 1960s Australia’, History of Education, 2025

11Mar25

Abstract: This paper examines media representations and surrounding discourse of holiday programmes developed for Aboriginal children in 1950s and 1960s Australia. Using a series of case studies and print media reports, this paper examines how white settler organisers and newspapers constructed narratives about holiday programmes as part of broader settler processes that sought to position education as central to assimilation. This discourse was used to legitimise the involvement of white settlers in the school holidays of Aboriginal children, in ways that rendered the role of their families and homes invisible, and that misrepresented and misrecognised the participation of the children themselves. In doing so, this paper unpicks holiday programmes – as charitable, educational and participatory assimilatory exercises – to examine some of the stories that white Australians have told themselves about the relationship they think they have with Aboriginal people: that they are best placed to make decisions about Aboriginal children’s education.

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