Course structure
Year 1 core modules
Engaging with Research in Childhood and Youth
Practitioners undertake various roles connected to young children and are asked to account for their professional practice. In order to do this they are required to justify their practice by using relevant research. This module allows you to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of the importance of research and its links to the study of childhood and youth.
Inclusion and Diversity in Education
You explore how educational settings become learning communities, developing an understanding of how a range of issues can impact on children and young people's education and can often marginalise or exclude individuals. You identify and understand good practice in a range of social differences including religion, culture, race, social class, sexuality, gender and disability from a national and international context.
Safeguarding, Ethics and Values in Practice
You look at the ethical values that form the basis of working with children and young people and see how these are enacted in vital areas of practice, in particular safeguarding. You consider your own ethical values and the values embedded in education and other practice prior to undertaking your practice module.
Sociological Approaches to Children and Young People
You are introduced to key theories about the place of children and young people in society, focusing on the relationship between the individual and society, history, and social change to develop an understanding of this area. You gain the skills to critically analyse the role of government and services and consider a variety of explanations for the different life chances experienced by groups of children and young people.
The Developing Child and Young Person
You focus on children's holistic development, which is central to an understanding of working with children and families. You are introduced to a range of theories about children's growth and development and the provision that is made to ensure children develop to reach their potential.
Youth and Childhood in Society
You examine historical aspects of youth and childhood, linking learning to policy development and interventions. You gain key knowledge in theoretical concepts and relate this learning to current issues and concerns surrounding children and young people growing up in the UK today.
Year 2 core modules
Challenges to Childhood and Youth
You consider key social issues in childhood and youth and related policy within the UK. You focus on several national issues and policies to consider how national policy is formulated and implemented and how it impacts on children and young people growing up in challenging environments.
Employability and Work Experience
Gain academic credit for participating in work experience related to criminology, criminal justice and sociology. You may find your own work experience (subject to approval from your module tutor) or you can take advantage of work experience opportunities offered as part of the module.
Work experience must be performed to an agreed job description and person specification for a minimum of 60 working hours. To take part you must complete a DBS check, along with any other security checks required by your work experience provider. You must also agree to and sign a legal agreement outlining the obligations of yourself, the University and the work experience provider. Alongside your work experience you explore employability issues and skills through a number of interactive workshops led by professionals from within and outside the University.
This module has limited places and participation is subject to a selection process involving an application, shortlisting and interview.
Research Methods in Childhood and Youth
You understand the practice of research to prepare you for completion of your Level 6 childhood and youth research project. You focus on three inter-related aspects of research: the philosophical basis of different methodologies, the practice of carrying out research (including issues of approach, method, sampling, analysis), and how to ensure researchers follow ideas of good practice in research.
Working with Special Educational Needs and Disability
You explore current issues in relation to a specific area of inclusive practice. The content is structured around reflecting on inclusive practice when working with SEN and disabilities. You investigate how ways of talking about and understanding inclusive practice have changed over time, the tensions that exist between policy and practice, and aspects of practice in working with children and young people who have particular needs.
Youth and Childhood Identities
This module builds on your first year studies exploring the sociology of youth and childhood. You focus on the different identities of children and young people in relation to ethnicity and culture, gender, sexuality, location and belonging. You enhance your understanding of the diverse ways in which children and young people construct identity and how these identities may reflect social difference, divisions and inequalities.
and one optional module
Formal Educational Pedagogy
You consider the skills, knowledge and understanding needed to prepare for a career in primary or secondary education.
Informal Educational Pedagogy
You consider the skills and knowledge suitable to pursuing youth and community work.
Final-year core modules
Childhood and Youth Studies Research Project
You investigate a self-selected topic linked to your course in consultation with a research supervisor. The research project can be carried out individually or in a team of up to four students. This is the chance for you to put theoretical knowledge about research into practice and create their own contribution to knowledge.
Children, Education and Society
Traditional social theories present children and young people’s life trajectories as largely shaped by factors such as social class, gender and ethnicity. More recent sociological perspectives on selfhood in new times challenge traditional theory and place far greater emphasis on identity and notions of individuality, fluidity, negotiation and choice. You critically consider the extent to which formal education allows all children and young people to flourish regardless of their circumstances and conditions of choice.
Managing and Leading Work with Children and Young People
You explore the crucial role that leadership and management plays in ensuring organisational success as well as reflect on individual skills needed for successful leadership. Drawing on your own practice experience in your placement and on a variety of theoretical traditions, you consider models of leadership and the ethical and cultural components needed to maximise organisational success. Leadership and management can be described as a field abundant with adult theories and practices but with little focus on childhood and youth. This gap is bridged in this module by considering it from the latter perspective.
Reflections on Practice
You consider the importance of reflecting on practice, exploring theoretical models of reflective practice and how these can be applied to practice with children and young people in either formal or informal educational settings. You also critically analyse your own practice in order to improve ongoing and future performance.
and one optional module
Enhancing Learning in Early Years
You understand the importance of pedagogy in an early years context. You explore engagement and implementation of educational frameworks with a particular focus on the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). There is an emphasis on play as the central belief that practitioners plan for children’s care, learning and development. You consider the individual and collective nature of children’s learning and how to plan for this in an early years environment and across the range of areas of learning.
You are assessed by 1,000 word lesson plan linked to educational guidance and theory and a 3,000 word essay critically discussing the practitioner’s role in providing learning opportunities and educational resources for children.
Exploring Curriculum Delivery in Educational Settings
You explore the importance of child-centred teaching and learning across early years foundation stage, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. The different pedagogical approaches between the different key stages are explored with a focus on key subject areas. Different modules of curriculum and their influence on the teaching environment are explored. This is relevant if you are considering working in an educational setting such as schools and nurseries.
You are assessed in two ways - small group work delivering a teaching session and an individual 3,000 word essay.
Sociology of Teesside 3: Youth and Social Exclusion
You consolidate your understanding of some of the principal issues in current youth research with a prime emphasis on social exclusion and inclusion. You interrogate theoretical debates about social exclusion and the underclass, drawing upon original research from Teesside.
You focus on the central claims that lie behind theories of the underclass and social exclusion and the key youth policy concerns that have come to the fore as a result (to do with youth crime, youth unemployment and young parenthood). You examine a range of social issues and social problems related to processes of youth transition and social exclusion/inclusion in the UK, drawing upon local research wherever possible (the NEET problem, youth homelessness, young people and health/ill-health, child poverty, graduate unemployment and under-employment, and cultures of worklessness).
