History Elective

Topic 3 GENCOCIDE

Rationale:The aim of this topic is to develop students’ understanding of the nature, history and short and long terms impacts of Genocide across the world. Students explore the origins and development of Genocide as a concept and its legal definition used by the United Nations as well as the Eight Stages of Genocide to understand how such atrocities evolve and occur in a variety of contexts across the world. Students will apply the Eight Stages and the social, cultural, political and economic impacts of Genocide in Rwanda, Genocides committed during the Yugoslav Wars, the Holodomor in Ukraine, the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire and the systematic targeting of First Nations peoples in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. Students will consider the experiences of victims and the lasting impacts on wider countries, societies and across the world. The unit promotes historical, critical and collaborative thinking through evidence-based inquiry, analysis of perspectives, motives and value and limitations of primary and secondary evidence of Genocides and engaging with historiographical debate on oral history, history and memory and the impact of political propaganda and messaging on responsibility and accountability for Genocides across history demonstrating continuity and change across the modern world.