Contemporary Italian philosopher, Gianni Vattimo (1991), has described ‘the end of history’ as a motif of our times. While neo-liberal conservatives such as Francis Fukuyama (1992) celebrated triumphantly, and perhaps rather prematurely after the fall of the Berlin Wall, ‘the end of history’ in the ‘inevitable’ global acceptance of the ideologies of free market capitalism and liberal democracy, methodological postmodernists (including Barthes, Derrida, Baudrillard, Lyotard, and Foucault), mobilised ‘the end of history’ throughout the later half of the twentieth century as a symbol of a crisis of confidence in the discourse of modernity, and its realist epistemologies. This loss of faith in the adequacy of representation has been seen by many positivist and empiricist historians as a threat to the discipline of history, with its desire to recover and reconstruct ����the truth���� of the past. It is argued by defenders of ‘traditional’ history (from Appleby, Hunt, & Jacob, 1994; R. J. Evans, 1997; Marwick, 2001; and Windschuttle, 1996; to Zagorin, 1999), and some postmodernists (most notably, Jenkins, 1999), that if we accept postmodern social theory, historical research and writing will become untenable. This study re-examines the nature of the alleged ‘threat’ to history posed by postmodernism, and explores the implications of postmodern social theory for History as curriculum. Situated within a broadly-conceived critical-reconceptualist trend in curriculum inquiry, and deploying a form of historically and philosophically oriented ‘deconstructive hermeneutics’, the study explores past attempts to mount, and future possibilities for, a curricular response to the problem of historical representation. The analysis begins with an investigation of ‘end of history’ discourse in contemporary theory. It then proceeds through a critical exploration of the social meliorist changes to, and cultural politics surrounding, the History curriculum in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, from the Bicentennial to the Millennium (1988-2000), a period that marked curriculum as a site of contestation in a series of highly public ‘history wars’ over representations of the nation’s past (Macintyre & Clark, 2003). It concludes with a discussion of the missed opportunities for ‘critical practice’ within the NSW History curriculum. Synthesising insights into the ‘nature of history’ derived from contemporary academic debate, it is argued that what has remained uncontested in the struggle for ‘critical histories’ during the period under study, are the representational practices of history itself. The study closes with an assessment of the (im)possibility of History curriculum after ‘the end of history’. I argue that if History curriculum is to be a critical/transformative enterprise, then it must attend to the problem of historical representation. / PhD Doctorate

[pt] Este trabalho visa a estudar a influência da Reforma Benjamin Constant no currículo de matemática do Colégio Pedro II. Benjamin Constant foi professor e Ministro da Instrução, dos Correios e Telégrafos, em 1890-1. Ele quis reformar o ensino brasileiro, desde a escola primária até os cursos superiores. Essa Reforma teve caráter enciclopédico, inchando de conteúdos os programas das disciplinas, sobretudo os de matemática. O Colégio Pedro II foi criado em 1837-8 para servir de modelo ao ensino secundário brasileiro, que se caracterizou por dirigir-se à elite socioeconômica; na prática, o Colégio não correspondeu bem à expectativa inicial. A Reforma alterou os programas de matemática do Colégio; dentre outras modificações, introduziu neles, a partir de 1895, noções de cálculo diferencial e integral. Para analisar a influência da Reforma nos mencionados programas, o trabalho compara os currículos vigentes de 1880 a 1890 aos posteriores (1890- 1900). As bases teórico-metodológicas da pesquisa são Ivor Goodson e Jean- François Sirinelli. O trabalho visa, ainda, a caracterizar Benjamin Constant como intelectual e a examinar se e como esse seu status teria influído na Reforma. A pesquisa usa numerosos documentos: atos normativos (como os decretos que instituíram reformas educacionais no Império e no início da República), documentos curriculares (programas de matemática do Colégio Pedro II) e documentos produzidos pelo próprio B. Constant. / [en] This paper intends to study the influence of the Benjamin Constant Reform in the Mathematics curriculum of the Pedro II School. Benjamin Constant was a Mathematics teacher and the Head of the Instruction, Mail and Telegraph Ministry (1890-1). He intended to reform all levels of Brazilian education and decreed the Reform named after him. The Reform had an encyclopedic nature, inflating the content of the programs for each subject, especially the one for Mathematics. The Pedro II School was founded in 1837-8 to serve as a model for Brazilian secondary education, which was characterized as targeted to the social/economical elite; however, the School does not seem to have fulfilled the initial expectations. The Reform altered the Mathematics syllabus of the Pedro II School; among other changes, it added, from 1895 on, notions of differential and integral calculus. To analyze the influence of the Reform in the aforementioned syllabi, this paper compares the Mathematics curriculum in use in 1880-1890 to the ones used later on (1890-1900). The theoretical and methodological bases for this research were Ivor Goodson and Jean-François Sirinelli. The paper also aims to establish Benjamin Constant as an intellectual, and to examine if and how this status would have affected the Reform. The research uses several documents: normative acts (such as the decrees that established educational reforms in Brazil, during the Empire and in the early Republic), curriculum documents (Mathematics syllabi of the Pedro II School in the 1880-1900 period) and documents produced by B. Constant himself.