20 CATS modules generally involve 20 contact hours per semester, 10 CATS modules generally involve 10 contact hours per semester. Contact hours often include a blend of face-to-face lectures/ workshops and online sessions. Students can choose some optional modules that are all face-to-face, all online or a blend of both.
Core modules:
Childhood and Youth Research and Practice – 10 CATS
This is an introductory module brings together students and academic staff from a range of areas to showcase research, highlighting different issues and looking at a variety of projects using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The module will conclude with a workshop on research ethics and governance.
Foundations in Children's Rights – 20 CATS
This module will introduce students to international children's rights laws affecting children, with a particular focus on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It will locate children's rights within the broader framework of human rights law and introduce the core provisions of international children's rights, emphasising the research skills used to identify and understand major human rights treaties and secondary documentation. It will explain the fundamental principles of children's rights and their implementation and introduce theory and ongoing debates in the field, such as the limits of children's autonomy and the potential tensions between children's rights and parents' rights.
Introduction to Research Methods - 20 CATS
The aim of the module is to provide a general research overview and to contextualise the broad range of approaches and debates that are evident within contemporary educational research. The module aims to provide students with an understanding of the theory and an appreciation of the differing perspectives that underpin quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Students will be introduced to the ethical issues relating to educational research as well as a range of methodological approaches, within which the key theoretical and practical issues will be addressed.
Perspectives in Childhood and Youth – 10 CATS
This is an introductory module brings together students and academic staff from a range of areas to familiarise students with diverse disciplinary perspectives on children and young people. Indicative content includes: the sociology of childhood; youth studies; psychobiological approaches; children's rights; health approaches and interventions.
Youth and Social Justice – 20 CATS
This module introduces students to key concepts, theories and debates in youth studies. It provides an understanding of the ways in which major social science disciplines have conceptualised and studied young people, alongside some of the contemporary issues that affect their lives. The module explores the framing, conceptualisation and theorisation of youth across time, considering the academic and political interest in their lives. It examines the relationship between young people, social change and social policy and encourages students to apply theory to contemporary youth issues, and to critically consider institutional and policy responses.
Youth Justice: Theory, Law and Practice – 20 CATS
The module covers key areas in youth justice including theories on causes of offending. The emergence of a separate response over time to young people who come into conflict with the law is critically explored. Current system and practice orientations such as prevention and early intervention are explored, as are interventions for young people who are processed through the youth justice system. Here students will learn about different philosophies, orientations and legal frameworks towards youth justice in local and international contexts. Students will be encouraged to critically reflect upon the merits and demerits of the panoply of different approaches towards youth and justice from restoration to responsibilisation, towards risk orientation and welfarism.
Dissertation – 60 CATS (20,000 words max.)
Optional modules include:
Child Rights Based Research Methods – 20 CATS
Economic Impact of Childhood Interventions – 10 CATS
Improving Outcomes Using Evidence Based Practice – 10 CATS
Qualitative Data Analysis – 10 CATS
Qualitative Research in Childhood and Youth – 10 CATS
Quantitative Data Analysis – 10/20 CATS
Researching Conflict and Change in Northern Ireland - 10 CATS
Comment
Teaching Times
Morning / Afternoon / Evening/ Weekend and online flexible learning