HS3S041 - Understanding Postwar Britain: Evidence and Debates 01 Aug 2024 - 31 Aug 2027 | Version 1

Associated Module Information

Module Code: HS3S041
Module Title: Understanding Postwar Britain: Evidence and Debates
Faculty: Faculty of Business and Creative Industries
Faculty Group: Culture and Animation
Faculty Sub Group: Culture
Module Leader: Rachel Lock-Lewis
Module Team: Christopher Hill
First Intended Intake: SEP 2021 Final Year of Intake: 2026
Date Closed:
Credit Value: 20 Credit Level: 6
Language: English
Percentage of Module Taught in Welsh: 0
Equivalent Module:
HECOS codes:
HECOS Code Weighting:

Document Version Information

Version 1
Valid From 01 Aug 2024
Valid To 31 Aug 2027

Module Aims

The module aims to evaluate the key factors that drove change during this formative period in the making of today’s society, interrogating widely-accepted narratives by drawing on the unprecedented array of sources now available to students of this period. It aims to explore the dialogue between the dialogue between the present and the past by relating contemporary concerns/issues (for example, about inequality, inclusivity, social justice and environmental degradation) to their historical roots and trajectories.

It aims to develop students’ use of digital resource, skills of data analysis and acquisition of digital fluency, and provide students opportunities to practise communicating complex, and often contentious, historical findings and meanings to a wider (albeit imagined) public audience.

Content Summary

A better understanding of the past informs contemporary thinking about issues that matter to us today. The period from the end of the Second World War to the turn of the twenty-first century was formative in the development of today’s society so, with this in mind, the chronological parameters of this module span postwar reconstruction and economic boom through to the dislocations, restructuring and renegotiations of the post-‘golden age’ period.

Though the lens of the changing context(s) of government, the economy, the role of the state, demography, the dismantlement of empire and the development of technology, the module explores the renegotiation in this period of national identity/identities, class, social hierarchies, gender roles, family structures and sexuality. The focus will be on the manifestation of ‘phenomena’ such as individualism, consumerism, secularism and multi-culturalism and the resulting social change, protest/resistance movements and legislation. The tension between change and continuity and between agency and structure form useful paradigms through which the extent and nature of societal change will be assessed.

Learning and Teaching Methods

Activity Type Hours
Lecture 19
Seminar 20
Tutorial 1
Independent Study 80
Directed Study 72
Formative Assessment - Scheduled 8
Total Hours Selected 200

Learning Outcomes

# Learning Outcome
LO1 Analyse the post-war origins and development of contemporary isues.
LO2 Relate the findings of historical research to contemporary debates about local, regional, national and global challenges.

Module Requisites

N/A

Assessment Criteria

Assessment Category Assessment Type Description Duration Word Count Weight (%) Best of? Pass Mark
Asynchronous Assessment Project Output 1 Option 1 Virtual Exhibition based on PowerPoint; Option 2 Podcast; Option 3 Wiki page 0 N/A 50 No 40
Synchronous Onsite Oral Assessment Oral Assessment (Internally assessed, Onsite) 1 Students give an oral presentation to a group of peers on a topic/question negotiated with the module tutor 15 N/A 50 No 40

Assessment Matrix

Assessment Type Learning Outcomes
LO1 LO2
Project Output 1
Oral Assessment (Internally assessed, Onsite) 1

Reading List

Paul Addison, No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Postwar Britain (2010)
Peter Clarke, Hope and Glory: Britain 1900-2000 (2004)
Paul Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (2002)
Peter Hennessy, Having it so Good: Britain in the Fifities (2006)
David Kynaston, Austerity Britain, 1945-51 (2007)
Sheila Rowbotham, Promise of a Dream: Remembering the 1960s (2000)
Dominic Sandbrook, State of Emergency: Britain, 1970-74 (2011)
Pat Thane, Unequal Britain: Equalities in Britain Since 1945 (2010)