OxfordAQA International GCSE History (9245): Paper 2 Section A, Societies in Change — Study Guide

Section A of OxfordAQA International GCSE History (9245) Paper 2 is a “society in change” study: how ordinary people’s lives were affected by political, economic, social and cultural change in one country. Students study one of three options – Life in Germany, 1919-1949; Life in Russia and the USSR, 1914-1953; or Life in the USA, 1920-1968 – and answer four questions worth 30 marks. The focus throughout is on different groups of people, such as women, workers, farmers, minorities and the young.

Where this fits in 9245

9245 is a new qualification for teaching from September 2026, first examined in May/June 2028. Paper 2, Studies in change, lasts 1 hour 45 minutes and is worth 60 marks (50% of the qualification). Section A (this guide) and Section B (a thematic study of technology or medicine) carry 30 marks each. Related pages: Societies in change revision notes, Societies in change practice questions, the Paper 2 overview and the Section B thematic studies guide.

Syllabus coverage

OXFORDAQA INTERNATIONAL GCSE HISTORY (9245), VERSION 1.1 – 3.2.1 SECTION A: SOCIETIES IN CHANGE

Option	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
3.2.1.1 Life in Germany, 1919-1949	Weimar Germany, 1919-1933	Hitler’s Germany, 1933-45	Post Second World War Germany, 1945-49
3.2.1.2 Life in Russia and the USSR, 1914-1953	From Tsardom to Communism, 1914-1924	Stalin’s Dictatorship, 1924-1941	The “Great Patriotic War” and the final years of Stalinism, 1941-1953
3.2.1.3 Life in the USA, 1920-1968	American people and the “Boom” of the 1920s	Bust: the Depression and New Deal, 1929-1945	Post-war America, 1945-68

How is Section A examined?

Question	Marks	Task
1	3	Show knowledge of a given issue
2	6	Explain one way an issue developed (cause, consequence or change)
3	9	Explain two changes or two ways/reasons
4	12	Extended response: explain a given factor and at least one other, then judge their relative importance

The specification suggests a Point-Evidence-Explain structure for the explanation questions.

Life in Germany, 1919-1949

Weimar Germany, 1919-1933. Defeat and the Treaty of Versailles left Germans bitter; the Republic faced violence from the Spartacists (crushed with the help of the Freikorps), the Kapp Putsch (1920) and the Munich Putsch (1923). Reparations, the Ruhr occupation and hyperinflation (1923) affected groups differently: savers, pensioners and the elderly were ruined, while some big businesses and landowners with debts gained. Under Stresemann the Rentenmark, the Dawes and Young Plans brought partial recovery; women gained the vote and new opportunities, Jewish Germans played a full part in cultural life, workers saw wages rise, but farmers struggled. The Depression fuelled extremism and the SA; Hitler appealed to workers, farmers, the unemployed, nationalists, industrialists, women and the young, and became Chancellor in 1933.

Hitler’s Germany, 1933-45. Communists and socialists were eliminated; the Enabling Act and the banning of parties and unions created a dictatorship; Himmler, the SS and Gestapo ran a police state with concentration camps; Goebbels controlled propaganda and the media; churches and schools were brought under control. Resistance included the White Rose, Swing Youth, Edelweiss Pirates and the July 1944 bomb plot. Public works, rearmament and conscription cut unemployment; big business gained while farmers and the middle class had mixed experiences; women were urged towards motherhood; Jewish people faced escalating persecution ending in the Final Solution, and the Roma and Sinti were also persecuted and murdered. War brought bombing, rationing, propaganda, labour shortages and refugees, and the regime collapsed in 1945.

Post-war Germany, 1945-49. Germans faced refugees, ruined cities, food shortages and the return of forced labourers; millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from eastern Europe. The Allies divided Germany into four zones, carried out denazification and the Nuremberg Trials, and the Soviet zone paid heavy reparations, including dismantled factories. The Marshall Plan aided the western zones; Berliners endured the Berlin Blockade (1948-49), supplied by the airlift; in 1949 the Federal Republic and the GDR were created.

Life in Russia and the USSR, 1914-1953

From Tsardom to Communism, 1914-1924. War brought defeats, shortages and inflation that hit the army, peasants, industrial workers and ethnic minorities, and led to the Tsar’s abdication in 1917. Kerensky’s Provisional Government lost support by continuing the war and through the Kornilov affair; the Bolshevik seizure of power affected soldiers, peasants (land), workers, aristocrats (property seized) and women (new legal rights). Lenin’s dictatorship used the Cheka and Red Terror; the Red Army defeated the Whites; War Communism, the Kronstadt Rising and the NEP changed life for peasants, workers, sailors, women and religious and ethnic minorities.

Stalin’s dictatorship, 1924-1941. Censorship, art, propaganda and the cult of personality; the Purges and Great Terror hit the army, the party, professionals, workers and religious groups. Collectivisation destroyed the kulaks and caused the Holodomor famine in Ukraine (1932-33); the Five-Year Plans transformed industry but crowded cities. Men and women were held up as the “New Soviet Man” and “New Soviet Woman”; education was changed; Russification and the persecution and deportation of religious and ethnic minorities continued.

The Great Patriotic War and late Stalinism, 1941-1953. The war caused immense economic and social damage; Stalin’s leadership is debated; women contributed in factories, farms and as soldiers – the sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko became a propaganda heroine. After 1945, industry was rebuilt faster than agriculture, which stagnated; living standards stayed low. High Stalinism brought renewed propaganda, terror and purges, with Beria and the NKVD, until Stalin’s death in 1953.

Life in the USA, 1920-1968

The Boom of the 1920s. Mass production (Ford), advertising, hire purchase, Republican policies and a stock market boom created a consumer society, but wealth was unequal. Cinema and jazz flourished; women won the vote, and fashions changed, though traditional values continued; the Sheppard-Towner Act (1921) funded maternal and infant health. Society was divided by Prohibition and organised crime, immigration controls (the 1921 quota system and the National Origins Act of 1924), Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan and the Red Scare (the Palmer Raids, Sacco and Vanzetti). The NAACP and Marcus Garvey’s UNIA challenged prejudice.

Bust, 1929-1945. Unemployment hit workers, farmers and businessmen; Hoover became unpopular; Roosevelt won in 1932, ended the 1933 banking crisis and used fireside chats. The New Deal helped farmers, the unemployed, homeowners, workers and the elderly, with limits for women, African Americans and Indigenous peoples, and faced opposition from the Supreme Court, Republicans and radicals. The Second World War – Lend-Lease and war production – ended the Depression, changed the lives of African Americans and women, and saw the internment of Japanese Americans.

Post-war America, 1945-68. Consumerism and prosperity, the American Dream, McCarthyism, rock and roll and television; Kennedy’s New Frontier and Johnson’s Great Society; feminist movements and the Equal Pay Act (1963). Civil rights campaigns: Brown v Board of Education (1954), Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56), the Little Rock Nine (1957), the Freedom Rides and marches, the NAACP, the SCLC and Martin Luther King; Malcolm X and Black Power; race riots; the role of the media and presidents; the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968.

Worked example: a question 4 plan

“Collectivisation was the main reason why life for Russian peasants changed between 1924 and 1941.” How far do you agree? [12]

1. Given factor: collectivisation ended private farming, deported kulaks, imposed grain quotas and caused the Holodomor famine.
2. Other factor: the Five-Year Plans drew millions of peasants into city factories, changing their work and housing.
3. Other factor: persecution of religion, through closed churches and arrested priests, transformed village life.
4. Judgement: collectivisation was the main reason because it changed every peasant’s land, food and work, and the other changes followed from it.

Common mistakes

• Writing political narrative without saying how people’s lives changed.
• Treating “the people” as one group; the specification names many groups.
• In question 2, explaining more than one way (credit goes to one developed way).

Frequently asked questions

Is this the same as the AQA GCSE period study? No. 9245 options have different dates and focus on the experiences of groups; always revise from the 9245 specification.

Are sources used in Paper 2? The Paper 2 questions are knowledge and explanation questions; source work is in Paper 1 Section A.

When are the first exams? May/June 2028, then every May/June and November.

Official specification

OxfordAQA International GCSE History (9245) specification, Version 1.1, section 3.2.1 and 4.4.2 – oxfordaqa.com.