UCL’s Sociology of Childhood and Children's Rights MA explores cutting-edge research and theories about the politics of children and childhood. Taught by research-active academics working across global contexts, the course engages students with contemporary issues such as children’s rights in conflict and migration, the impact of digital technologies on childhood, and the effects of austerity and inequality. You will consider how to challenge dominant constructions of childhood and explore new possibilities for advancing social justice for children and young people. The course provides you with the opportunity to identify, examine, and understand key sociological perspectives on the complex links between childhood, children's rights, and social justice. You will cultivate understandings of the shifting social status of children and childhood, considering emerging forms of inequality. You will develop conceptual and research skills to analyse how social, political and economic changes affect childhoods, as well as young people's contributions and creative responses to dynamic global contexts. Examining childhood in global contexts, as well as how childhood is cross-cut by class, 'race', gender, and ability, will enable you to question taken-for-granted assumptions about children and childhood. Historical perspectives will support you to identify how childhoods are shifting in contemporary contexts of neoliberalism, (post)colonialism, conflict, digitisation, and transnational migration. The course is one of four postgraduate sociology degrees offered by UCL Social Research Institute. Others are Sociology MSc, Sociology and Data Science MSc, and Sociology and Social Inequalities MSc. It is available full-time (one year), part-time (two years) or via flexiblemodular study (taking a maximum of five years to complete). This MA is relevant for applicants interested in academic careers researching childhood and those seeking to develop professional practice with children, both in the UK and other international contexts. It is especially relevant for applicants aiming for careers in children’s services; education, health, legal, policy, and social care sectors; youth work; and children’s rights organisations.
