Category Archives: Training/Education

Training/Education

MA in Children, Youth and International Development

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This innovative interdisciplinary programme, based at Brunel University, is one of the first worldwide to cater specifically for those working, or interested in working, in the field of children, youth and international development. Taught by highly motivated, internationally recognised, research-active staff, it has been running for five years, and has attracted students from diverse disciplinary and occupational backgrounds and more than 40 different countries.

The course is designed to equip students with the conceptual understanding and breadth of knowledge required to critically evaluate policy and practice in the area of children, youth and international development. It also develops the skills necessary to design and undertake research relating to children, youth and development. Former students have progressed to careers with government, international organisations and NGOs as well as doctoral study.

The full time course requires attendance two days a week across two terms (September to April), followed by 6 months spent researching and writing a dissertation. During term 2, options include a work placement or participation in an academic exchange with the Norwegian Centre for Child Research in Trondheim.

The course commences in late September. We do not operate strict application deadlines, but partial scholarships are available on a competitive basis to international students who apply for the course by 25th May. It is advisable for international applicants to apply by early June in order to secure a UK study visa. Discounts are also available for UK-based applicants with first class degrees and to graduates of Brunel University.

Further details, are available on the Brunel website http://www.brunel.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/children-youth-international-development-ma. For further information, email nicola.ansell@brunel.ac.uk.

Funding Opportunities, Training/Education

Funded PhD Studentships at Loughborough University, UK

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Applications are invited for funded postgraduate research studentships in the School of Social, Political and Geographical Sciences at Loughborough University.

Applications are invited for funded studentships in the School of Social, Political and Geographical Sciences at Loughborough University. Internationally renowned for its research excellence, the University has a vibrant research student community of around 1200 students supported by a £6 million annual investment. In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise, every department was found to be undertaking research that is internationally recognised, with many regarded as ‘world leading’. Comfortably ranked in the top 20 of all major university league tables, the University was voted The Times Higher Education ‘Best Student Experience’ in England for six years running.

In human geography, we have led intellectual agendas in ‘Children, Youth and Families <http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/geography/research/crics/childrenyouthandfamilies/> ’ research, and have developed distinctive contributions to knowledge on ‘Migration, Identity and the State’ <http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/geography/research/crics/migrationidentityandthestate/> . Inter-disciplinarity, and a commitment to the co-production of knowledge with non-academic partners, are hallmarks of our work, giving geographical research at Loughborough a meaningful role in contemporary debates about social and environmental futures

Before submitting an application, you must contact the School to discuss your proposal and ensure that it relates to School staff expertise. Please feel free to email or ring any member of human geography staff who you think could oversee your work.  We are a friendly bunch and more than happy to chat to you about your application. Details of how to apply can be found here:http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AHU100/phd-studentships/. For enquiries about the application process, please contact Sandie Duddle (S.E.Duddle@lboro.ac.uk).

Funding and eligibility

The studentships are open to graduates with backgrounds in relevant disciplines and who are articulate, well qualified and highly motivated. The minimum entry qualification is a 2.1 Honours degree or equivalent. The studentship provides a tax free stipend of £13,726 per annum for a period of three years plus tuition fees at the UK/EU rate. Note: International (non EU) students may apply but due to funding restrictions will need to find the difference in fees between those for a ‘UK/EU’ and ‘international’ student themselves. Non UK applicants must meet the minimum English language requirements, details available here: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/international/englang/index.htm

The candidate will be expected to register for 1st April 2014.

Closing date for applications: Monday 3rd February 2014. 

Funding Opportunities, Training/Education

TWO Funded PhD opportunities at University of Hull, UK

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Caring Children in Malawi & East Yorkshire – Children’s Work within Families affected by Illness and Disability 

This PhD studentship is an opportunity to explore across connected communities, the care-giving work children undertake for family members (parents, siblings, grandparents, other adult relatives) with differing needs for care based on chronic illness (especially HIV), associated disability/impairment, young and old age.

This studentship will investigate the outcomes of caregiving by children in the Global North and South across rural and urban locales with respect to young caregivers’ education, health, well-being and aspiration. Sharing lessons North-South and South-North through connecting stakeholder partners in Hull, East Yorkshire and Malawi in Southern Africa, the study will inform policies and interventions to support families affected by illness/disability.

This study offers a valuable opportunity to extend ongoing inter-disciplinary research by human geographers and other social scientists. Informed by a ‘new social studies of childhood’ perspective and using a qualitative, participatory methodology the project aims to explore outcomes of caregiving by children for their education, physical and emotional wellbeing and aspirations.

A key objective is to identify policies and practices to support families with care needs. This will be achieved through engagement with and connecting organisations supporting young caregivers in Southern Malawi and Hull/East Riding in order to undertake fieldwork (funding available) and develop policy recommendations. Interested applicants should have relevant degree (min 2:1) or Masters in sociology, human geography, social work or related discipline

To discuss informally how you might develop this doctoral research please contact Dr Elsbeth Robson <mailto:E.Robson@hull.ac.uk> 10, Department of Geography, Environment and Earth Science.


In order to qualify for this scholarship you will require at least a 2.1, but preferably a Masters degree, in a relevant subject.
Full-time UK/EU PhD Scholarship will include fees at the‘home/EU’ student rate and maintenance (£13,726 in 2014/15) for three years, depending on satisfactory progress. Full-time International Fee PhD Studentships will include full fees at the International student rate for three years, dependent on satisfactory progress.
PhD students at the University of Hull follow modules for research and transferable skills development and gain a Masters level Certificate, or Diploma, in Research Training, in addition to their research degree.
Closing date: – 3rd February 2014.

For details of how to apply please visit the 2014 PhD Studentships web pages <http://www2.hull.ac.uk/student/graduateschool/phdscholarships.aspx#ConnectedCommunities>  http://www2.hull.ac.uk/researchandinnovation/connectedcommunities/phdscholarships/caringchildren.aspx

Events, Training/Education

Childhood, rights, research ethics and critical realism: New ways to research childhood

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Three seminars with Priscilla Alderson, Professor Emerita of Childhood Studies, Institute of Education

Each session will briefly outline main ideas in critical realism. Then we will review how they can apply to research about childhood, and children’s rights, and research ethics. Please bring ideas and questions from your reading and research.  

Childhood and critical realism

Tuesday 21st January 2014, 5.30-7.30, Room 736, IOE, 20 Bedford Way, London

Critical realism examines the basic living reality (being) of children, and how that differs from ways in which children are perceived and understood (knowing). Another critical realist theme is the four planes of social being: bodies and nature; interpersonal relations; social structures; and the good life. How can all four planes inform research with children? Can methods in natural science apply to social science?

Children’s rights, citizenship and critical realism 

Tuesday 25th February, 5.30-7.30, Room 736, IOE, 20 Bedford Way, London

Do universal rights really exist, or are rights simply local ideas that vary in time and place? When do ‘human’ rights begin in life? Do they gradually develop up towards adulthood, or can babies have human rights and be citizens? How can critical realist concepts of being and knowing, and of the four planes of social being, inform research about rights and citizenship?  

Research ethics and critical realism

Thursday 13th March, 5.30-7.30, Room 736, IOE, 20 Bedford Way, London

Are justice, respect and avoiding harm universal concepts, or are they simply local ideas that vary in time and place? How can critical realist concepts of being and knowing, and of the four planes of social being, inform research ethics and how they are applied? How do ethics in natural science and in social science research overlap or differ?

Although the seminars are planned for MA students, others are very welcome to attend one or more sessions. For those wanting more advanced sessions on critical realism, these are held by Professor Roy Bhaskar at the Institute of Education on alternate Monday evenings.

Power point files and background reading will be sent out before the sessions, and the format will mainly be discussion. If you would like to know more before you decide whether to attend, the main themes are set out in Priscilla Alderson’s book Childhoods Real and Imagined: An Introduction to Critical Realism and Childhood Studies (Routledge 2013) Chapters 1-3, IOE library Ral Bad ALD.

To register and for more information contact Rachel Rosen: r.rosen@ioe.ac.uk.

 

Resources, Training/Education

Family Troubles? video resources update

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Video links are now available for the Symposium Family Troubles?, including the following presentations:

CLIP ONE:

Professor David Morgan (Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Morgan Centre, University of Manchester), Family troubles, troubling families and family practices

Professor Jo Boyden (Director of Young Lives, University of Oxford), Changing expectations of children and childhood in four developing countries: challenges for intergenerational relations

CLIP TWO:

Dr Jonathan Dickens and Dr Georgia Philip (School of Social Work, University of East Anglia), Challenging meetings and talking about troubles: families and professionals in statutory meetings about children

Professor Ann Phoenix (Co-Director of the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London) Situating children’s family troubles: Resources, relationality and social context

All the information, including the new videos and a podcast about the book, is available at, or linked from this page:

http://www.open.ac.uk/ccig/research/families-relationships-and-communities/family-troubles

 

Funding Opportunities, Training/Education

Doctoral studentship, Colonial Childhoods, University of Hull

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Funded PhD Studentship: Producing the Geographies of Childhood in Colonial Africa: Children’s Lives in Twentieth-Century Nyasaland

University of Hull , U. K.

Orthodox histories of European imperialism in Africa often celebrate formal institutions, high politics and the roles of ‘Great White Men’ in the constitution of colonial territory and society. Key figures such as Rhodes and Livingstone were significant, but they are not the whole story and these approaches neglect other marginalised social groups who also constituted the European presence in Africa. Feminist critiques have retrieved some women’s experiences in Africa as explorers, travel writers, colonial officer’s wives, teachers, nurses and missionaries.

These accounts have enriched understandings of everyday life in the colonies and offer alternative perspectives on issues of race, gender and authority. However, European colonial children remain a group routinely, and almost entirely, overlooked. This doctoral studentship will uncover and retell the stories of European children in Nyasaland whose colonial childhoods were distinct and deserve academic attention.

Children were a highly significant and distinctive presence within European colonial society. Their lives were framed by the racial hierarchies that striated colonial society: being white meant they were instantly privileged, although gender and class also inflected their status and opportunities. Likewise, illness and stark levels of child mortality also marked their lives. Many died in the colonies which shaped how families understood their ‘colonial service’ abroad. Distance also shaped these lives – with many children leading dislocated lives: being born and raised abroad and always distant from ‘home’.

This study is informed by historical children’s geographies and will develop work on the geographies of European colonial children by retrieving and retelling the stories of European children in Nyasaland 1889-1964. The studentship will examine colonial children’s life worlds and uncover their voices through autobiographies and memoirs, diaries, letters and photographs. Through archival work (in Britain and Malawi – funds available) and interviews with former colonial children this study will address research questions such as: How were the historical geographies of European settlement in Africa experienced differently by generational groups (parents and children)? How did colonial hierarchies of age and generation intersect with gender, class and racial hierarchies? What do the micro-historical geographies of families from the period of Empire look like?

In order to qualify for this scholarship you will require at least a 2.1, but preferably a Masters degree, in a relevant subject.

Full-time UK/EU PhD Scholarship will include fees at the‘home/EU’ student rate and maintenance (£13,726 in 2014/15) for three years, depending on satisfactory progress. Full-time International Fee PhD Studentships will include full fees at the International student rate for three years, dependent on satisfactory progress.

PhD students at the University of Hull follow modules for research and transferable skills development and gain a Masters level Certificate, or Diploma, in Research Training, in addition to their research degree.

Closing date: 3rd February 2014.

Application Form and details at http://www2.hull.ac.uk/student/graduateschool/phdscholarships/fosaengineering-10.aspx

Interested applicants are encouraged to direct informal enquiries to: Dr Elsbeth Robson E.Robson@hull.ac.uk , Dr Rosemary Wall R.Wall@hull.ac.uk , Prof David Atkinson David.Atkinson@hull.ac.uk

Training/Education

EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST IN PhD STUDIES IN GEOGRAPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO

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Applications are invited from potential applicants with an interest in the topic:  ‘Families’ sense of place and place attachment’ commencing in 2014.

Supervisors: Dr Christina Ergler & Associate Professor Claire Freeman (Department of Geography, University of Otago, New Zealand)

We are seeking a student willing to embark on a PhD and interested in working on a mixed-methods project on ‘Place attachment and social connection in urbanising societies’. Whilst place attachment is an area that is of established interest to geographers the role of children in forging place attachment for families is less well understood (Weller & Bruegel, 2009, Gordon, 2012).  The project seeks to critically explore broad questions around factors contributing to and hindering place attachment. In particular, the project is interested in how family members from different New Zealand communities develop or negotiate the complexity of place attachment through their social and physical mobilities (see also Freeman, 2010). In doing so, the research contributes to debates in geography, environmental psychology and planning with reference to multiplicities of place attachment.

Students with first class Honours or Master degrees and backgrounds in human geography, planning, child studies or sociology are encouraged to contact us. Knowledge of or interest in developing skills in a geographic information system as well as excellent oral and written communication skills are a requirement for this project.

The project is contingent on the applicant applying for and securing a University of Otago PhD Scholarship (international or domestic), satisfying University of Otago Ph.D. entry requirements and meeting New Zealand study visa requirements, if appropriate.

If you would like to discuss the project further please contact Christina Ergler via e-mail Christina.ergler@geography.otago.ac.nz or Claire Freemancf@geography.otago.ac.nz.  Please send a CV (including academic transcripts) and a one page covering letter outlining why you consider  that you are a suitable candidate (this should cover what skills/knowledge you bring to the project, what aspects you find particularly interesting and any ideas you may have on how the project could be developed).

Information on the Otago University Geography Department and the supervisors for this project is available on http://www.geography.otago.ac.nz/

 

Training/Education

MPhil in Childhood Studies – application deadlines

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MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY IN CHILDHOOD STUDIES, NORWEGIAN CENTRE FOR CHILD RESEARCH, NTNU

APPLICATION DEADLINES


Are you interested in children’s everyday lives and in childhood as a social and cultural phenomenon? Would you like to know about children’s lives in different parts of the world? What about the changing conditions of childhood in the era of globalisation? If so, the international master’s programme in Childhood Studies might be perfect for you. For more information, please visit this website:

www.ntnu.edu/studies/mpchild <http://www.ntnu.edu/studies/mpchild>

Application deadline for international applicants: 1 December 2013.
Application deadline for Norwegian/Nordic applicants: 15 April 2014.

www.ntnu.edu/studies/mpchild/admission <http://www.ntnu.edu/studies/mpchild/admission>