VCE Units 1 & 2 - Modern History
VCE Units 1 & 2 - Modern History
Overview
VCE Modern History examines the causes and consequences of conflict and change in the modern era. VCE Modern History assists students to understand themselves, others, and the contemporary world, and broadens their perspective by examining events, ideas, individuals, groups, and movements.
Unit 1 – Change and Conflict
Students investigate the nature of social, political, economic, and cultural change in the later part of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Modern History provides students with an opportunity to explore the significant events, ideas, individuals, and movements that shaped the social, political, economic, and technological conditions and developments that have defined the modern world.
Areas of Study:
- Ideology and Conflict: Students focus on the events, ideologies, individuals, and movements of the period that led to the end of empires and the emergence of new nation states before and after World War One; the consequences of World War One; the emergence of conflict; and the causes of World War Two.
- Social and Cultural Change: Students focus on the social life and cultural expression in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, and their relation to the technological, political, and economic changes of the period. Students explore forms of cultural expression from the period.
Unit 2 – The Changing World Order
Students investigate the nature and impact of the Cold War and challenges and changes to social, political, and economic structures and systems of power in the second half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Areas of Study:
- Causes, course, and consequences of the Cold War: Students focus on the causes and consequences of the Cold War; the competing ideologies that underpinned events, the consequences on people, groups and nations, and the causes of the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR.
- Challenge and Change: Students focus on the ways in which traditional ideas, values and political systems were challenged and changed by individuals and groups in a range of contexts during the second half of the twentieth century and first decade of the twenty-first century.
Forms of Assessment
A combination of:
- a historical inquiry
- an essay
- evaluation of historical sources
- short-answer questions
- extended responses
- a multimedia presentation.
Prerequisites and Corequisites
It is an advantage to have completed a Year 10 History subject however not necessary.