Grade 11

The curriculum statement is from the Department of Education for the year 2008.

Knowledge focus

  1. What was the world like by 1850?

    • African state formations;

    • the Americas;

    • Europe

    • Asia

  2. Imperialism:

    • What was the nature of imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?

    • What were the consequences of imperialism for Africa and Asia in terms of power relations and trade?

    • What was the link between imperialism and World War 1?

    • How did imperialism and colonialism entrench ideas of race – segregation, assimilation, paternalism?

    • How did imperialism dominate indigenous knowledge production?

  3. What were the range of responses to colonialism in Africa and Asia?

    • resistance – armed, passive, diplomacy;

    • other forms of response:

      • cultural, political,

      • trade unionism, identities, peasant movements,

      • nationalism in Africa and Asia (India).

  4. Challenges to capitalism: the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the communist state (Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism).

  5. Crisis of capitalism: the Great Depression in the USA and its wider impact in terms of the emergence of fascist economies and states (e.g. Nazi Germany and Japan).

  6. What was the impact of pseudo-scientific racism and Social Darwinism on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (including the eugenics movement in the late nineteenth century and its impact on ideas of race and racism in Africa, the USA, Australia, Europe and particularly leading to genocide in Nazi Germany)?

  7. Competing nationalisms and identities in Africa:

    • the roots of Pan-Africanism to 1945;

    • the roots and nature of South African nationalisms and identities (African and Afrikaner nationalism, English jingoism, Indian and ‘coloured’ identity);

    • impact of World War 2: How did the nature of the political quest for independence in Africa change from 1945 (radicalisation of Pan-Africanism)?

  8. How does nationalism impact on the construction of heritage and identities?

    • How unique was apartheid South Africa?

    • How was segregation a foundation for apartheid?

    • To what extent was apartheid in South Africa part of neo-colonialism in the post World War 2 world (1948-1960)?

    • How did apartheid entrench ideas of race?

    • What was the nature of resistance to apartheid during these decades, and how was this resistance part of wider resistance in the world to human rights abuses?

    • How did the world change between 1850 and 1950?

    • How has the South African past been publicly represented (e.g. in museums and monuments)?

 

Read the topics for: Grade 11