Need data for PhD Thesis

[dreadingthetime]

Hello, Please can I have data on what was the English Literature syllabus for GCSE (or equivalent pre GCSE era) from year 1970 to 2000? Not sure how can I get hold of accurate data? Or if any MN member can throw light on this?

Many many thanks

They will vary by exam board. And by year. What info exactly do you need. Set texts?

Wouldn't you be better finding out what the exam boards were back then and if they still exist contacting directly? You might struggle though as it was largely pre the digital age.

You need to clear it with MN, but it may be possible to set up an online survey which asks members the date they took GCSE equivalents, the exam board and what books they read for English Literature.
hope that helps

The exam boards will have official records

Many thanks!

I did O levels in 1982.
My Eng Lit was

• Macbeth
• Pride & Prejudice
• selected Poems by Tennyson

I have the papers upstairs. So I could go and find them, and give you the board & full list of possible texts. Let me know if that would help.

For what it's worth I did English Lit O level in 1977 (Oxford board). We studied:
The Tempest,
The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and
Brighton Rock (which I hated).

Er, I think if you are going to be accredited with a research degree (PhD), it's kind of YOU that needs to work out a method and do the research.

Asking Mumsnet (we're all liars, dontcha know) saying, "Please can I have data on..." won't count as research.
Actually contacting exam boards would.
🤦‍♂️

What @PhDmum22 said.

I did gcse lit in 1990
lord of the flies
The Tempest
Of Mice and Men.
100% coursework based.

Wasn't it like now where there were a range of texts that could be taught; one Shakespeare module / one poetry module etc etc. I'm not sure I can remember GCSEs tbh, I did them in the second year - 1989. The exam boards that exist now swallowed up the exam boards that existed then so they should still have the data.

This list gives you the current exam boards and what old exam boards they may have data from

www.gov.uk/replacement-exam-certificate/if-your-old-exam-board-no-longer-exists

AEB O level English Lit in 1987. Great Expectations, The Importance of Being Earnest and a poetry anthology

More or less - for my O level in 1977 I had to do Merchant of Venice, Under Milkwood and Chaucer's The Nun's Priest's Tale (in the original Middle English, FFS). The other sets did 3 other books - I remember one included Tess of the D'Urbervilles, I was quite annoyed that my trio didn't include a proper novel.

Definitely you'd need to contact the exam boards to get a comprehensive list, OP.

GCE O Level - Oxford Examination Board - Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare Sonnets, Great Expectations. I too am a little concerned that you lack the ability to conduct robust research and I'd not be impressed if you cited mumsnet as one of your sources but I do appreciate that many of the examination bodies have since ceased to exist or merged, but I am sure that they'd have archives of some kind you could access. For instance OCR might be useful www.ocr.org.uk It is also very possible that schools could choose from a yearly syllabus, as I seem to remember having choice about some of the questions and the other English Lit group at school (same year) not having to study Great Expectation but To Kill a Mockingbird!

1987, not sure which board, but Julius Ceasar and Great Expectations. Can't remember what else!

Olevel 1986 Cambridge Board
I'm the King of the Castle
Romeo and Juliet
Silas Marner (we called it Silage Farmer!!!!)
Grim books (apart from R+J)- hated Eng Lit put me off reading for years - up to then I had loved books. Took me along time to fall in love with reading again.

English Lit is not for every one - I think we she find ways of encouraging the love of books rather than forcing a narrow selection of what is considered great literature. Needless to say science was my strong point rather than the arts.

Oxford O Level 1966
Henry V - Shakespeare
The Rover by Joseph Conrad
Albemarle Book of Modern Verse.

International English Lit O level 1987, Cambridge board. 1984, Animal Farm, War poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, The Taming of the Shrew, Genesis from the Bible.

Zombie thread, but as someone who has a PhD and supervises PhD students, this is NOT how to conduct PhD research.

OP should have been discussing a legitimate method for obtaining the necessary data with their PhD supervisor(s), not haphazardly canvassing for information on an internet forum (presumably without ethical approval to collect and store the data obtained).