IB Middle Years Programme Individuals and Societies: Syllabus Guide

This guide covers the full framework of IB Middle Years Programme Individuals and Societies, from 2014. It complements the subject overview and the assessment revision notes already on the site by setting out the discipline options schools choose from and the four assessment criteria used to judge student work – the actual scope of the subject group, not just its aims.

The MYP requires at least 50 hours of teaching time for individuals and societies in each year of the programme, rising to a recommended 70 hours of guided learning per year in MYP years 4 and 5 for students pursuing MYP eAssessment.

What “individuals and societies” actually covers

This subject group incorporates disciplines traditionally studied under humanities and social sciences, and its stated purpose is to encourage learners to respect and understand the world around them while equipping them with skills to inquire into the historical, geographical, political, social, economic and cultural factors that affect individuals, societies and environments. For MYP individuals and societies, schools develop courses in integrated humanities, history, economics, geography, philosophy, sociology/anthropology, business management, psychology, and world religions. Which of these disciplines a given school actually teaches is a school-level decision, so the specific content a student studies can vary considerably between schools even though the subject group name and assessment criteria stay the same.

Key and related concepts

The framework is organised around key concepts of change, global interactions, time, place and space, and systems, explored through related concepts such as causality, globalization, culture and sustainability. As in every MYP subject group, students explore these through the same six global contexts – identities and relationships, orientation in space and time, personal and cultural expression, scientific and technical innovation, globalization and sustainability, and fairness and development.

The four assessment criteria

• Criterion A: Knowing and understanding – developing factual and conceptual knowledge about individuals and societies.
• Criterion B: Investigating – developing systematic research skills and processes associated with humanities and social science disciplines, working independently and collaboratively.
• Criterion C: Communicating – organising, documenting and communicating learning using a variety of media and presentation formats.
• Criterion D: Thinking critically – using critical-thinking skills to develop and apply understanding of individuals and societies and the process of investigation.

Each criterion carries equal weight and is scored on eight achievement levels (1-8), grouped into four descriptor bands – the same level-and-band structure used across every MYP subject group, which means students moving between individuals and societies and, say, MYP Sciences encounter a familiar assessment logic even though the criterion names and content differ.

MYP eAssessment

Students seeking IB MYP course results or the MYP certificate in this subject group complete a 2-hour on-screen examination – available specifically in history, geography and integrated humanities, made up of three tasks:

• Investigating (criteria A and B, 26 marks) – evaluating an investigation and planning one of the student’s own, alongside demonstrating knowledge and understanding either from the course or from source material presented in the exam itself.
• Communicating (criteria A and C, 18 marks) – engaging creatively with a given topic or context, presenting information effectively in a style and format appropriate to the audience and purpose.
• Thinking critically (criteria A, C and D, 36 marks) – discussing issues, arguments and perspectives through structured questions, culminating in an extended piece of writing. This is the largest of the three tasks by mark allocation.

Sample topics the on-screen examinations draw on include demographics and human movement, settlement and urban morphology, superpowers and supra-national alliances, significant individuals, warfare and peacekeeping, rights and social protest, trade and economic exchange, and industrialization and technological development.

How to approach it

Because the thinking-critically task carries the largest share of marks (36 of 80) and culminates in extended writing, practising sustained, structured argument – not just short-answer recall – is the single highest-value use of exam preparation time in this subject. Because the investigating task explicitly asks students to evaluate source material’s value and limitations (not just summarise it), build the habit of asking what a source can and cannot tell you about a topic every time you work with primary or secondary material in class, since this is tested directly and is a distinct skill from simply extracting facts from a source. Because the specific discipline mix (history, geography, economics, and so on) varies by school, confirm early which of the on-screen examination subjects – history, geography or integrated humanities – your own course actually prepares you for, since revising the wrong one wastes significant effort in a subject group already broader than most others.

One sample question from the official brief’s history eAssessment illustrates the investigating task’s source-evaluation demand directly: “Explain one value or one limitation of source B for a student researching protests.” A further question – “Compare and contrast source C and source D in terms of their usefulness in studying protest movements” – shows that source evaluation is not a one-off skill but one applied comparatively across multiple sources. A third sample question, “To what extent do you agree that gaining support from different groups in society is the most important factor in making sure a protest movement is successful?”, models the kind of extended-writing, multi-perspective argument the thinking-critically task expects: taking a position, weighing it against alternatives, and reaching a reasoned judgement rather than simply describing events.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Individuals and Societies, from 2014, © 2021.