- Department: History
- Module co-ordinator: Dr. Mark Roodhouse
- Credit value: 40 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
It is widely believed that a revolution in British social attitudes and behaviour took place during the Sixties, making Britain a secular ‘permissive society’. In popular accounts, this sea-change amounted to the discovery of ‘sex, drugs n rock n roll’ by the young. Unlike a political revolution, there was no single event that marked the beginning of changes that many contemporaries felt climaxed in the ‘Summer of Love’ of 1967, although others pointed to the trial of Penguin Books for publishing the novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover in 1960. A topic of roiling historical controversy since the decade ended, this module asks what changed in Sixties Britain and why it did so before considering the consequences and legacies of the period.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Autumn Term 2022-23 to Spring Term 2022-23 |
The aims of this module are:
Students who complete this module successfully will:
Teaching Programme:
Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1 of the autumn term. Students prepare for and participate in fifteen three-hour seminars. These take place in weeks 2-5 and 7-9 of the autumn term and weeks 2-5 and 7-10 of the spring term. Both the autumn and spring terms include a reading week for final year students and so there will be no teaching in week 6. There will also be a two hour revision session in the summer term. One-to-one meetings will also be held to discuss the assessed essay.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
Autumn Term
Affluence and Consumerism
State of the Nation
Law and Morality
Policing Morals
Death of Christian Britain
Crime and Punishment
Youthquake
Spring Term
Sexual Revolution
Drugtakers
Swinging London, Swinging Sixties?
Trusting the People, Civilizing Society
Feminism and Gay Liberation
Counterculture and Student Protests
The New Puritans
Legacies
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Essay/coursework 4,000 word essay |
N/A | 50 |
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled) Open Exam - The Permissive Society |
8 hours | 50 |
None
For formative assessment, students will be given the opportunity to do two practice gobbets and then are required to write a 2,000-word procedural essay relating to the themes and issues of the module in either the autumn or spring term.
For summative assessment, students complete a 4,000-word essay which utilises an analysis of primary source materials to explore a theme or topic relating to the module, due in week 5 of the summer term.
They then take a 24-hour online examination for summative assessment in the summer term assessment period comprising: one essay question relating to themes and issues, but showing an awareness of the pertinent sources that underpin these AND one ‘gobbet’ question (where students attempt two gobbets from a slate of eight).
The essay and exam are weighted equally at 50% each.
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Essay/coursework 4,000 word essay |
N/A | 50 |
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled) Open Exam - The Permissive Society |
8 hours | 50 |
Following their formative assessment task, students will typically receive written feedback that will include comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission.
Work will be returned to students in their discussion groups and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their procedural work with their tutor (or module convenor) during student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 20 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:
Addison, Paul. No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-War Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Aldgate, Anthony, James Chapman and Arthur Marwick, eds. Windows on the Sixties: Exploring Key Texts of Media and Culture. London: I.B. Tauris, 2000.
Donnelly, Mark. Sixties Britain: Culture, Society and Politics. London: Routledge, 2005.