Childhood And Early Years Studies MA

You will develop your understanding of academic conventions in UK higher education aligned to your level of study, including expectations around critical analysis, structure, argumentation, evidencing, and referencing. The module focuses on developing communication strategies that will help you express your ideas clearly and coherently in written assignments and spoken activities. You will also reflect on your current academic and language skills and develop strategies for development ahead of your assessments.

Critical Childhoods will look at the conceptual, political, and social contexts children and young people experience. You will be encouraged to take a critical and reflective approach to analyse the ways in which these broader contexts shape childhoods. The module is interdisciplinary drawing from Social Sciences, Humanities and Law. Specifically, by the end of the module you will be able to:

1. Critically analyse and demonstrate an understanding of childhood and young people in a range of contexts.
2. Demonstrate a theoretical understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of childhood in different social, cultural educational contexts around the world.
3. Apply the relevant theory to current policy and practice within organisations working with children and young people.
4. Demonstrate a critical understanding of childhood as a social construction and children and young people as social actors.

Diverse Childhoods: Identities and Inequalities will explore the lives of children and their experiences in relation to disability, sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, socio economic status. Diversity matters as it may have an impact upon how groups and individual children are understood by society, contributing to dominant and emergent discourses about youth and childhood. Further, the module will look at the ways in which children are marginalised and discriminated against in society. The module will also look at institutions where some of these issues are encountered. The module, for instance, will draw open theories of feminism, critical disability studies, critical race theory and critical childhood studies theory. Equally, it will focus on oppressive and anti-oppressive practice. This module aims to introduce and critically reflect on theories of inequalities in the wider context of childhood studies. You will critical policy and practice focused on enabling the inclusion of all children and young people. You will also consider the lived experiences of children drawn from empirical work and the way the gap between rhetoric and experience is negotiated.

This module provides the underpinning skills and knowledge necessary to undertake independent research in Childhood and Early Years Studies at Level 7. It will give you the opportunity to develop practical and theoretical skills in the use and understanding of different research paradigms, methodological approaches and their associated research methods. You will also develop an in-depth understanding of related issues, including but not restricted to, research ethics, data management and analysis, the use conceptual frameworks and how to engage critically with the literature.

This will provide you with a framework to critique and question research, policy and practice and their impact on children and young people. Drawing on this, you will be able to develop a research proposal which addresses contemporary issues in Childhood and Early Years Studies, drawing on relevant research literature in order to analyse and justify your methodological approach. You will also be supported to explore subject based literature in order to support your identification and exploration of a research question.

Building on the Research Methods Approaches and Skills Module this module will increase your understanding and skills. This module will build on your knowledge, understanding and application of key ideas, perspectives and activities in social research relevant to Childhood and Early Years. You will develop further knowledge and understanding about what and how things can be ‘known’ (epistemology), ways of seeing the world (paradigms), approaches and traditions in research (methodology), collecting or generating data (methods) and analysing or interpreting findings (analysis). You will develop a critical understanding of how to relate each of these elements to enable you to carry out independent research and write your dissertation project. You will also learn about research ethics and protocols.

Indeed, the focus of this module is a small-scale independent research project which students undertake with the support of an experienced academic research supervisor. You will be supported to develop an appropriate project which may be based on empirical data (quantitative or qualitative or mixed methods), work-based reflections, evaluations, case study or literature based. Peer support is also encouraged through student led seminars.