Education Studies

Overview:

Schooling can be viewed as just one context within which education may take place; there are many other contexts in which educational approaches are used to work with children, young people and adults. Some of these contexts include advisory work, early childhood practice, educational administration and policy, learning support and the third sector to enhance educational provision for children, families and communities. This MA will explore education across these different areas.

The programme will draw on the wider professional experiences that students may have of working in contexts where educational approaches are important. These may include experiences such as employment in youth work, sports’ coaching with young people, working for charities with children and young people to provide learning opportunities in this country or internationally.

This MA will cover critical social and educational theories and perspectives, as well as policy and practice relevant to global and local educational contexts. It will support you to achieve a critical awareness and understanding of education in its broadest sense as a process of human learning and development in and for human society.

You will benefit greatly from engaging with the insights, experiences and perspectives of your peers who may come from a diverse range of contexts, backgrounds and experiences. These insights combined with your own experiences and the theory gained from the modules will allow you to deepen your understanding of working with children and young people and of education in its broadest sense.

All lecturers leading modules on this programme have specialist qualifications, teaching or leadership experience in the field of education, with relevant research and scholarship backgrounds, which will help to shape the content of the programme.

Those with less practical experience will need to have studied a degree programme such as BA Education, BA Children’s Studies, BA Youth Work, BA Early Childhood Studies, BA Social Pedagogy or BA Sports Coaching, all of which emphasise the practices of working with children and young people to enable their participation, development and learning.

This MA allows you to engage with a range of topics across different areas of education, with a particular focus on the critical theories of global policy and of the social relations of difference and power in educational contexts.

You will be introduced to the key concepts of race, ethnicity, class and gender in the Power in Education and Society module. You will be moved beyond theoretical knowledge to reach an informed position in relation to equality, diversity and social justice in education. Awareness will be raised of past and current international discourses in education, critically examining how they impact on children, young people, families and communities.

You will also analyse current debates on education policy and will learn to identify new policy sites and policy actors in the education arena, in the Key Concepts and Current Debates in Global Education Policy module.

The compulsory final dissertation module will give you the opportunity to select a topic of your choice and undertake a critical enquiry of the subject. You must also take a (required) research module, called Undertaking Social and Educational Research, which is designed to teach you about social and educational research and to prepare you for the dissertation.

You can select a further three modules from a range of options, including those from related MA programmes in Early Childhood Studies, SEN Disability & Inclusive Education and Education Leadership and Management. This gives you the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding in an area of education that interests you, or is relevant to your chosen career. A maximum of two from any of these programmes can be taken and decisions about which of these are appropriate for each student are made by the Programme Convenor in consultation with students.

Career Options

The programme supports and enables you to:

• Move into or develop your career in working with children and young people. Depending on professional qualifications already achieved, this might include advisory work, teaching, early childhood practice, learning support, careers in youth engagement and participation, working for community, non-governmental organisations and the third sector to enhance and enrich educational provision for children, families and communities both in the UK and internationally
• Move into or develop careers in policy-making, implementation and development of children and young peoples’ services / education, education information management or administration and contract research both in the UK and internationally. 
• Undertake a Doctorate and move into a career in academic research

*Note that students wishing to move into a career for which a professional certificate is necessary – for example ‘Qualified Teacher Status’ to become a teacher or Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership to be an Educational Psychologist, should undertake the relevant professional practice course. This course does not provide any certification or accreditation for professional practice.

How to apply

Postgraduate programmes