Teachers’ Use of the Social Education Materials Project (SEMP)

The Social Education Materials Project (SEMP) was launched into the Australian education arena in 1975 and was heralded as yet another major project to overcome current curricular deficiencies — in this case ‘to develop an understanding of contemporary society and the forces shaping the lives of people in that society’ (Jones, 1977, p. 91). The project was the first one to be fully administered by the newly created Curriculum Development Centre (CDC). Eight teams, with at least one allocated to each State, worked on specific topics during 1975-76. Their brief was to develop a wide range of materials for a variety of school contexts and for various social education subjects (including the social sciences).