BA Childhood and Youth Studies: Year 3
Please note the School of Education and Lifelong Learning will not be recruiting any more undergraduate students from 2009. For more information please see the main Undergraduate home page
In Year 3, there are two core modules: ECY 30011 and ECY 3003. Students can then choose two further modules, one of which may be chosen from the wide range of Level 2 modules and one of which must be at Level 3. Some of the Level 3 modules are described below:
ECY 3001: Learning from Experience
In this module you are given the opportunity to undertake a work placement of approximately 80 hours in a children’s or young people’s setting. The setting will be chosen by you, with the agreement of the module tutors.
Through this module, students use their workplace experience as an opportunity for personal, academic and professional development. The module will enable students to critically analyse and reflect upon their learning styles, skills, strengths and weaknesses, and to plan how they can develop and learn from the experience. Assessment will take the form of: (a) a reflective portfolio undertaken during the work placement, and (b) a 4000 word essay. Students select the focus for the essay.
By the end of this module students should have developed further their critical and analytical skills, and have gained experience and understanding of an organisation/educational institution which will be valuable to them when they start your career.
ECY 3003: Dissertation in Childhood and Youth Studies
The previous Methods of Educational Enquiry and Research module provides the skills students need to conduct their own research and the Dissertation module is the chance to do that.
Planning the strategy for the Dissertation will already have begun in the previous course based upon each student having an entirely free choice about what exactly is the topic they want to research. It could be a study of a setting or organisation which caters for children and young people, a study of policy, of children’s culture or identity, or issues concerned with upbringing in home and family - all that is required is that it focuses on a topic which is of relevance to childhood and youth studies, and that it involves the collection, analysis and writing up of material.
The module begins with some sessions for everyone that review ethical issues and talk about the practicalities of working in depth on a topic. The students under the supervision of a member of staff who has specialist knowledge in the area concerned will then proceed with individual, probably, weekly sessions to give detailed advice about strategy, collecting/analysing data and writing up.
ECY 3004: Disability
The module aims to enable students to: develop a framework for understanding disability as a multi-level entity, including the impact of disability at personal, social, and societal levels; develop a critical understanding of educational, social and societal inclusion within the context of national and international models of ‘inclusion’. Community Inclusion: social, economic, personal and political. Historical and contemporary issues pertaining to the empowerment and inclusion of persons with disabilities and developmental disabilities into community settings; develop understanding of legislative, legal, and administrative foundations for the provision of services to persons with disabilities. Roles of residential institutions, the independent living movement, class action litigation and advocacy; develop a critical understanding of psychological, educational, support and care issues concerned with meeting individual needs in inclusive settings; examine contemporary ethical issues affecting the lives of persons with disabilities and disability professionals; critique the application of ethical principles to problems of genetics, treatment decisions, competency, etc.; examine Advocacy and Empowerment in Disability; examine health issues in disability with emphasis on health promotion and preventing secondary disease; examine barriers to equity –disability images, attitudes to disability and the built environment.
ECY3009 International Perspectives on Childhood
The module aims to:
Living in a pluralist global society it is important to recognise and understand the wide range of living contexts in which children and young people grow and develop.
This module aims to raise students’ awareness of the impact of current international trends, particularly economic and political, on the lives of children and young people. Some of the topics include poverty, children living with HIVAids, child soldiers, street children, child prostitution, cared for children, adoption and fostering.
ECY 3011: Social and Educational Enquiry III
The skills of collecting data, analysing it and seeing what it tells us are more and more in demand in industry, commerce as well as the more welfare oriented professions concerned with all aspects of the lives of children and young people, and this module trains students to do exactly this.
It looks at the history of social research and then moves on to provide students with skills to conduct their own research by considering issues such as research strategy, interviewing, designing questionnaires, and conducting in depth case studies.
Methods of analysing data, including statistical techniques are also be taught. Towards the end of the module, students begin to think through the research strategy appropriate for the Dissertation course (which follows this course) so that they are already making sound plans for this.