Childhood, Youth and Education MSc

This interdisciplinary Masters applies a comparative, cross-cultural approach to understanding the relationship between childhood, youth and education.

The first of its kind in the UK, the degree draws on insights from anthropology, geography, development studies, education and sociology. This interdisciplinary approach will equip you with the top-notch analytical skills you need in the contemporary world to pursue careers in education and teaching, government and the civil services, international development and aid work, counselling, educational and child psychology, youth services, community and social work, advocacy and policy making, community outreach, healthcare and paediatric specialisms, non-governmental agencies, and much more.

The degree will appeal to those intending to work with or for children and young people, within or outside of educational settings across the globe, as you seek to understand the contemporary issues, debates and challenges that impact upon current and future generations.

Teaching for this degree is research-led and the curriculum is continuously updated in response to contemporary global events that impact on childhood, youth and education. A combination of lectures and interactive seminars, presentations and debates will challenge you to critically address questions about:

• How ideas about ‘childhood’, ‘youth’ and ‘education’ differ across cultures
• Learning, identity and social difference
• The way children’s everyday lives impact on their education
• Child rights and child labour
• Young people and migration
• Class, race and gender
• Youth cultures and subcultures
• Education, inequality and social reproduction

Through cross-cultural comparison, you will interrogate these kinds of issues, along with prevailing assumptions about the relationship between childhood, youth and education.

As well as undertaking rigorous intellectual training, you will have the opportunity to carry out your own ethnographic fieldwork in the UK or overseas. In recent years, Brunel students have carried out fieldwork in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Philippines, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, China, Morocco, and New Zealand, as well as within the UK and the rest of Europe.

A 30-month part-time option of the course is also available. If you wish to be considered for this option, please make your application for the 24 month part-time route and then contact the Admissions team to request the change to the 30 month duration.

You will study three compulsory modules related to i) understanding children and youth, ii) critical perspectives on education and learning, and iii) ethnographic research methods, in addition to your dissertation research.

You will also choose from a range of options from across the Division of Anthropology, Development and Geography, which will challenge you further in your critical and comparative understanding of childhood, youth and education.

Brunel is well-known for its focus on ethnographic fieldwork. Your research methods training will provide you with the skills to conduct your own ethnographic research anywhere in the world, according to your own research interests. This fieldwork will form the basis of your MSc dissertation.

Examples of recent dissertations from students on the MSc Childhood, Youth and Education include:

• ‘Being left behind’: Ecuadorian school girls’ experience of international migration
• ‘We don’t matter in school’: an ethnography of adult-youth relations in the UK education system
• Straddling meaningful worlds: youth, rap music and power in Equatorial Guinea
• Children’s agency in a London preschool: an ethnographic exploration
• Beyond sexual exploitation: the complexities of child trafficking in Nepal
• An ethnographic study of how social, cultural and religious identity is constructed in a Muslim faith school in London
• Judas and the Witch: witchcraft, religion and the street-children of Kinshasa
• Children’s understanding of values: the role of the hidden curriculum in primary school
• Informal learning and religion: the spiritual path of Hindu devotees
• ‘I did it my way’: parents of autistic children and their journey through the diagnosis
• ‘Is this play?’: Maltese children’s negotiations of play in a drama classroom
• Re-examining the ‘exiled LGBTQ+ Traveller’ narrative within the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community
• The role of the school in the (re)production of the Danish welfare citizen
• Taleem and Tarbia: the transmission of education and knowledge by grandmothers in 5 Afghan-Canadian homes
• Children’s foodways in school
• Challenging the category of ‘teenager’: autonomy in a youth-led go-kart club
• Social identity and social reproduction in island Portland

This course can be studied 1 year full-time or 2 or 2.5 years part-time, starting in September.

This degree will prepare you for a range of challenging careers in many fields and organisations, including: education and teaching, government and the civil services, international development and aid work, counselling, educational and child psychology, youth services, social work, advocacy and policy making, community outreach, healthcare and paediatric specialisms, non-governmental agencies, and much more.

It will also provide you with a firm grounding for doctoral research on childhood, youth and education if you choose to undertake a PhD.

A 2:2 (or above) UK Honours degree or an equivalent internationally recognised qualification with personal statement demonstrating knowledge of interest in subject area.

Applicants with other degrees along with relevant experience will be considered on an individual basis.

• IELTS: 6.5 (min 6 in all areas)
• Pearson: 59 (59 in all subscores)
• BrunELT: 63% (min 58% in all areas)
• TOEFL: 90 (min 20 in all) 

N.B. UK and EU applicants: the 30 month part-time course will not be eligible for a Postgraduate Loan. If you wish to be considered for the part-time 30 month version, please make your application for the 24 month part-time route and then contact the Admissions team to request the change to the 30 month duration.

Assessment is typically by essay or practical assignments (for example, analysis of a short field exercise), and a dissertation of approximately 15,000 words based upon your own fieldwork experience. There are no examinations.