Latest Module Specifications
Current Academic Year 2025 - 2026
No Banner module data is available
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Description Victorian Britain: society and culture: The purpose of this module is to introduce the students to key developments and themes in the society and culture of Victorian England. Students will engage with issues of class change, class divisions, poverty, work, gender and prostitution, crime and health. The students will examine these themes through secondary sources and a variety of primary sources including parliamentary papers, government reports, memoir, prescriptive literature and fiction. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Learning Outcomes 1. Demonstrate an understanding of the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation in Victorian Britain. 2. Understand concepts of class and discourses on gender against the background of key socio-economic transitions and transformations. 3. Identify and explain continuities and change in the context of the themes discussed. 4. Evaluate the key secondary sources and the historiographical debates. 5. Critically engage with primary sources. 6. Engage in written assessments which show an understanding of the core debates. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml |
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Indicative Content and Learning Activities
The industrial revolution Students will discuss the transformation of Britain from a rural society into the first industrial nation of the world. The Victorian city Students will examine the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation in Victorian Britain. Work and poverty Students will consider the lives of the working classes in Victorian England with a focus on poverty, living conditions and the urban cities of the period. Issues of change and continuity in the period will be discussed. The manner in which poverty and the poor were viewed by those in positions of power will be discussed. A class society Students will examine the manner in which the industrial revolution gave rise to a class society. The emergence of the new middle classes will be considered with a focus on their values and material culture; dress, home life, etc. The manner in which these classes created a new identity for themselves and distinguished themselves from the working classes and the aristocracy will be discussed. Gender roles This section will discuss the manner in which the ideology of separate spheres determined gender roles in the period, ascribing to women a domestic role within the home. The manner in which this ideology was imposed on the working classes will be considered. The manner in which this ideology was underpinned by all pillars of the establishment will be analysed. Victorian sexuality Students will consider attitudes to sex and the Victorian double standard of sexual behaviour. Attitudes to prostitution and the attempt to regulate its practice under the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1864, 1866 and 1869 will be considered. Reform This section will deal with the manner in which attempts were made to remedy social problems including those of working, health and housing conditions. Poverty in the later Victorian period Students will recognise that state intervention in the area of working conditions, public health and sanitation, etc., was piecemeal and that high levels of poverty, crime and disease was a part of life for many of the working classes in the later Victorian period. This will be examined using Robert Robert’s memoir, The Classic Slum and through an examination of the lives of the five women killed by ‘Jack the Ripper’ in the 1888. The decline of Victorian Britain Students will assess the factors that led to the decline of Victorian Britain and understand that this decline was influenced not just by economic competition. Students will look at the influence of the ‘crisis of faith’; the suffrage question, the Irish question and growing labour militancy. Students will also consider to what extent the competitive spirit of the early industrial revolution was blunted as Britain witnessed the creation of a plutocracy at the end of the nineteenth century. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Indicative Reading List Books:
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Other Resources None | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||