Course outline
This interdisciplinary course offers a broad, compulsory introduction in year one, followed by the opportunity to select papers across a range of disciplines, or to focus more closely on a particular area of education you may be interested in exploring in more depth.
You attend approximately four to six lectures and seminars, and one or two hours of supervision per week.
You are assessed at the end of each year. Depending on the papers studied, this will be through practical work, coursework, written examination, or a combination of these. In the third year, all students also submit a dissertation.
Year 1 (Part I)
You take four compulsory papers which together will deepen your understanding of the multifaceted nature of education in societies across time and place. Each paper will draw on diverse and global perspectives guided by specific disciplinary practices:
- historical/philosophical
- psychological
- sociological
- arts and performance
Topics covered will range from things such as sociocultural and neuroscientific approaches to human development, global justice, the educational institutions of the Islamicate world, to issues of gender inequalities in schools and universities, to the theatre of the absurd and ecological crisis. These will provide a strong foundation to support you in a range of more specialist options in Part II.
Year 2 (Part IIA)
In Year 2, you take four papers. Two are compulsory, and are designed to provide you with the foundations of Education research, in preparation for the dissertation in Part IIB.
- Designing Educational Research
- Dissertation: Literature Review
You will then choose two further papers from a list designed to build on the core foundations provided in Part I. You will have the opportunity to design your own pathway, which can be pursued further in Part IIB. You may choose to specialise, for example in psychology, literature or international development. Alternatively, you may select papers which allow you to pursue your interests across a range of disciplines. For examples of the papers which may be offered, please see Part IIB.
Year 3 (Part IIB)
In Year 3, you take four papers: a compulsory dissertation of 8,000 to 10,000 words which will allow you to pursue a research project into a relevant area of particular interest to you, and three further papers from a list of options, again designed to give you the flexibility to pursue your interests in education, whether these are specialist or more general. Examples of papers which may be offered include:
- Language, Communication and Literacies
- Children’s Literature
- Modernity, Globalisation and Education
- Theatre: Text and Production
- Education, Neuroscience and Society
- Formal and Informal Contexts of Learning
- Changing Landscapes of Childhood and Youth: History, Experience and Culture
- Critical Debates in Education and International Development
- Case Studies in Education, Policy and International Development
- Towards a Transnational Sociology of Education: Space, Power and Politics
- Play, Creativities and Imagination
- International Literatures and Cultures
- Performance, Education and Society
For further information about studying Education at the University of Cambridge, see the Faculty of Education website.
