Grade 12

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

Knowledge focus

  1. What was the impact of the Cold War in forming the world as it was in the 1960s?

    • USSR/USA – creating spheres of interest;

    • What was the role of China?

    • areas and forms of conflict: Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, Middle East;

    • What role did the United Nations (UN) and other multi-lateral organisations such as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) play in attempting to mediate conflict?

  2. How was uhuru realised in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s?

    • What were the ideas that influenced the independent states?

    • What types of states were set up?

    • What were the possibilities and constraints?

    • What was the impact of internal and external factors on Africa during this time?

  3. What forms of civil society protest emerged from the 1960s up to 1990?

    • 1960s: civil rights, disarmament, student movements, peace movements, Black Power movement, women’s movements;

    • 1970s: Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa;

    • apartheid South Africa and Eastern Europe in the 1980s.

  4. What was the impact of the collapse of the USSR in 1989?

    • on South Africa;

    • on Africa: reflection and re-imagining the nation in the 1990s – a case study from Central, West or North Africa;

    • on the dominance of the USA.

  5. How did South Africa emerge as a democracy from the crises of the 1990s?

    • the crisis of apartheid in the 1980s;

    • the collapse of apartheid in South Africa – coming together of internal and external pressures;

    • how the crises were managed – conflict, compromise, negotiation, settlement, elections;

    • the Government of National Unity and the making of the new Constitution;
      dealing with the past and facing the future;

    • new identities and the construction of heritage.

 

Read the topics for: Grade 12