Children, Youth and International Development MA

About the Course

This programme is unique within the UK in catering specifically for those working, or interested in working, in the field of children, youth and international development. The course will equip you with the conceptual understanding and breadth of empirical knowledge that will enable you to critically evaluate policy and practice in the area of children, youth and development and give you the skills necessary to design and undertake research relating to children, youth and development.

Course information

Download the Course Leaflet (PDF)

Aims

To equip students with:

• The conceptual understanding and breadth of empirical knowledge that will enable them to critically evaluate research, policy and practice in the area of children, youth and development.
• An understanding of differing disciplinary perspectives on childhood and youth, and their theoretical and empirical contributions.
• The skills necessary to design and undertake research relating to children, youth and international development.
• Methodological, cognitive and transferable skills and substantive knowledge that will prepare them for employment, further study and civic engagement.

Enquiries

Course Director
Dr Nicola Ansell
School of Health Sciences and Social Care
Brunel University
Uxbridge
Middlesex UB8 3PH
Email nicola.ansell@brunel.ac.uk

Special Features

Jarret Guzman

Attending Brunel University and being part of the Master’s in Children, Youth and International Development programme has been an experience of a lifetime. This programme has helped me to gain greater insight into the lives of children and young people and to see how important policy positions affect them.

The delivery of the course content by the lecturers has been informative and enjoyable. The skills and information taught to me have helped to shape my professional life. At present I am working at the Youth Division of the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development, where I am charged with the responsibility of developing a Youth Health Policy and I am also part of a team which is developing a new delivery system for the Youth Division. I am also now a member of two committees appointed by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to deal with children and young people.

Brunel University has not only built me academically but also socially as I have made very valuable friendships. The University‘s close proximity to London was also a plus as it gave me the opportunity to explore this historic city.

I take great pleasure in recommending Brunel University to anyone who wants to develop both academically and socially.

Caroline Day

I undertook the Children, Youth and Development MA course at Brunel from September 2009.  Having spent time volunteering in Africa some years beforehand I had since been working in the UK children's charity sector but was looking for a route back into international work.  I saw the course profile on the website and it looked ideal - all the areas that I was most interested in - so I left my job in order to study again full-time. 

The course covered (amongst many other things) a wide range of key theories, practical concepts and research skills, which I was able to put into practice through a course placement volunteering with a local NGO supporting street children in Kenya, and in visiting Kenya directly where I researched the representation of street children for my MA dissertation.  It felt great to be learning again, and in such a supportive and knowledgeable environment.  The course both consolidated what I already knew and taught me so much more.

It was while undertaking the course that I saw a PhD studentship advertised at the University of Reading focusing on Care, Disability and Family Relationships in sub-Saharan Africa.  The MA had inspired me so much that I decided to apply for this opportunity knowing it would enable me to continue developing my skills and knowledge in the field and provide the opportunity to do longer term research directly with children and young people in Africa.  I am now in my second year of this course and living in Zambia where I am researching the impact of caring for sick or disabled parents or relatives on the life-transitions of Zambian youth (aged 15 to 30).  I absolutely love what I am doing - the families I have met have been so welcoming and open to me - and I have learnt so much already.  I will be returning to the UK in August to focus on writing my thesis while also taking on some lecturing responsibilities at the university to start preparing me for what may come once my PhD is completed.  While at the moment I don't know what that is, I do know that without having done the MA I would not be where I am now and I look forward to the opportunities that will arise in the future.

Course Content

The programme combines four core taught modules (accounting for 90 credits) with 30 credits worth of options. The core modules focus on key issues relating to international development, children and youth, and in particular the rights and participation of young people. They also prepare students in research design and practice, in preparation for the dissertation. The option modules offer a unique opportunity to appreciate in depth how children and youth-related issues are addressed from alternative disciplinary perspectives.

The programme is intended to relate to the needs of organisations working in the field of children, youth and international development. Students will have the opportunity, should they wish, to undertake a sustained project with an external organisation as part of a placement module. This may be an organisation with which they already have links, such as a current of former employer. They may also choose to apply their 60 credit dissertation to the needs of an identified community or organisation.

A range of teaching and learning techniques are employed on the programme, most of which stress the active involvement of students in discussion and debate. The programme also emphasises reflective, independent learning, both by individuals and groups, and students are well supported to achieve this through, for instance, tutorials, workshops and seminar discussions.

Staff place a strong emphasis on tutorial support and regular tutorials are integrated into the programme. Tutorials focus on the development of study skills (critical reading and writing), careers support, exam and assignment preparation, feedback on assessments and help in developing research proposals.

Modules

Core

International Development, Childhood and Youth
Main topics of study: theories of, and historical approaches to, development; the contested moral terrain of international development: social justice, responsibility and the construction of passive subjects (including the mobilisation of ‘the child’ as the ultimate passive, apolitical development object); poverty and wellbeing; livelihoods and sustainability; globalisation, global agendas and global institutions (including the export of a ‘global model of childhood’ through international conventions and organisations such as UNICEF); international aid policy and politics; the state and NGOs; development programmes and projects

Young Lives in the Global South
Main topics of study: popular and academic perspectives on childhood and youth, in particular the ‘new social studies of childhood’; intergenerational relations (roles of families and social reproduction); youth transitions; vulnerability and resilience; debates around the roles of work, education, health, sexuality and migration in young people’s lives.

Global Agendas on Young People, Rights and Participation
Main topics of study: human rights: history, critiques and mobilisation; theorising children’s rights: child liberation and caretaker views; changing conceptions of children’s rights; the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: history and critiques; alternative conceptions of children’s rights: the African Charter; children’s rights in practice: children’s rights in national laws; claiming rights; participatory development: history and practices; children’s participation: the arguments; participatory projects with children; problematising children’s participation; youth and participation; youth politics and activism.

Researching Children, Childhood and Youth
Main topics of study: the nature and philosophical foundations of social research; politics and ethics of social research, including considerations for cross-cultural research; special considerations for researching with children (including ethical issues); designing a research strategy for academic and policy research; designing monitoring and evaluation of projects; researching with/ in organisations; data collection (secondary data sources, fieldwork, collecting quantitative data, collecting qualitative data, visual methods, PAR etc); data analysis (quantitative and qualitative, discourse analysis, policy analysis, programme evaluation); communicating research – writing up and other dissemination strategies.

Dissertation
The choice of the topic for the research project is suggested by the individual student, but is subject to the formal agreement of the module leader. In general the topic is likely to be developed from substantive material covered elsewhere in the programme, and related to individual interest, experience and opportunities. The dissertation is usually developed from the research proposal produced in the research methods module, in discussion with a member of staff – the project supervisor.

Options

(Please note, not all options are available every year and some have capped intakes.)

The Anthropology of Childhood and Youth
Main topics of study: the concept of the child in society; children's participation in society; children's ways of coping with violence; child play; child labour; the history of youth as a political category; young people's resistance to marginalisation; the radicalisation of young people.

Sociology of Youth and Youth Work
Main topics of study: the study of the Social world; society and social processes; the sociology of youth; deviance, control, crime and young people; sociology, youth work and the youth service; young people in non-western cultures.

Contemporary Issues in Youth and Community Work
Main topics of study: education and lifelong learning: roles for youth work; dimensions of social cohesion: class, race, gender and disability in youth and community work; the significance of community and community work; listening to young people’s voices; youth work, citizenship and society.

Social Policy
Main topics of study: youth service in the welfare sate; consensus and conflict in welfare policy; local services in the 21st Century; youth work, youth service and contemporary social policy; the welfare state, youth work and youth service in the 2000s.

Anthropology of Education and Learning
Main topics of study: education and learning: culture and cognition; learning and embodiment; education, learning and apprenticeship; learning, language and knowledge; learning, identity and social difference; learning and social memory

Anthropological Perspectives on War and Humanitarianism
Main topics of study: contemporary warfare and complex emergencies; humanitarian responses to contemporary warfare; origins of humanitarianism: from the founding of the Red Cross to Medecins Sans Frontier; war and ethnic violence; war, famine and scarcity; refugees and mass forced displacement; international criminal justice and humanitarian assistance; re-building war-torn societies. Ethnographic case studies from East Africa, West Africa, South America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East will be used to engage with these topics.

Applied learning (placement)
Students opting for this module will undertake a short placement (a day a week for ten weeks) with an organisation that works in the field of children, youth and international development. Through the placement, a series of workshops and coursework assignments they will examine the relevance and responsibility of their academic studies to community, voluntary action and paid work, as well as having the opportunity to develop transferable, personal and subject specific skills to enhance their employability on completing their postgraduate degree.

Typical Dissertations

• Media and motherland: an investigation of media representation of Somalia in the UK and its impact on Somali children
• A fair chance to life: young care leavers in Kenya and their transitions to adulthood
• The Trinidad Youth Council perspective on policymaking and implementation
• Gap year projects abroad: young people’s motivations, experiences and challenges
• The representation of street children in Kenya by the international media and NGOs
• A critical exploration of the relationship between young people’s agency and their access to information in a rural Zimbabwean secondary school
• Exploring the individualised relationships between donors and recipients that are created through child sponsorship programmes
• Evaluating the impact of participatory action research with young refugees and asylum seekers
• What does it mean to be an adult? Young refugees and multifaceted transition
• ‘Our film is very good … and the London film is good too’: children’s experiences of creating their own films to explore and exchange their everyday life experience
• The effects of transnational migration on the socialisation of third world children and youth in the UK: case studies of Jamaican children and youth in South East London
• An emotional support program for children with HIV in Vietnam: Camp ‘Colors of Love’: a case study of global-local negotiation and internalization

Teaching and Learning

A range of teaching and learning techniques are employed on the programme, most of which stress the active involvement of students in discussion and debate. The programme also emphasises reflective, independent learning, both by individuals and groups, and students are well supported to achieve this through, for instance, tutorials, workshops and seminar discussions.

Staff place a strong emphasis on tutorial support and all students are assigned to a tutorial group. Regular tutorials focus on the development of study skills (critical reading and writing), careers support, exam and assignment preparation, feedback on assessments and help in developing research proposals.

Assessment

The form of assessment used depends upon the aims of particular modules, but includes essays, exams, oral presentations, debates, student-led seminars and reports. Care has been taken to balance the variety of assessment strategies across the degree and to employ methods that will enable students to develop and practise a range of transferable skills.

Careers

The course prepares graduates for work in international development NGOs or in government ministries and agencies in countries in the global south.

Placements

Exmaples of the placements students have undertaken on the Applied Learning module include:

• INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE TRUST – The student helped to develop an IRT on-line classroom from which children could learn about refugees. She posted articles on their blog and created some on-line learning activities.
• ANTI-SLAVERY INTERNATIONAL – The student, who is from Nepal, worked on a project aiming to eradicate caste based bonded labour from Nepal. She created district profiles for 10 areas and communicated with project partners in order to identify cases for ASI to follow up.
• BASTI RAM – This is a very small organisation run from the home of its founders which seeks to improve health and education in rural India (especially Rajasthan). The student’s task was to plan lessons for a Global Citizenship project.
• BOOKAID INTERNATIONAL – The student built up an evidence base for Book Aid’s international programmes.
• ACTION AID – The student worked on a campaign targeting exploitation in the garment industry.
• COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIAT – The student worked on the CS’s Youth Programme in Uganda.
• THE MOUTH THAT ROARS – The student worked with children in London and Saudi Arabia to create videos through which they communicated their everyday lives to each other.
• NATIONAL DEAF CHILDREN’S SOCIETY – The student helped to develop a programme of international exchanges for deaf young people.

Fees for 2013/14 entry

UK/EU students: £5,800 full-time

International students: £12,000 full-time

Read about funding opportunities available to postgraduate students

Fees quoted are per annum and are subject to an annual increase.

Entry Requirements

Normally, a good first degree (class 2.1 or above) in a social science subject is expected. Applicants who have a 2.2, or a first degree from another field, or in exceptional cases no first degree will be considered if they have appropriate experience in international development work or work with children or young people. In such cases, an interview may be required.

English Language Requirements

• IELTS: 6.5 (min 6 in all areas)
• TOEFL Paper test: 580 (TWE 4.5)
• TOEFL Internet test: 92 (R20, L20, S20, W20)
• Pearson: 59 (51 in all subscores)
• BrunELT 65% (min 60% in all areas)

Brunel also offers our own BrunELT English Test and accept a range of other language courses. We also have a range of Pre-sessional English language courses, for students who do not meet these requirements, or who wish to improve their English.