Child and youth studies
Child and youth studies is located in the Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET). We draw on a range of approaches and methodologies including those from developmental psychology, childhood and youth studies, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies. Themes include:
- children and young people: experiences, identities, spaces, voice and agency
- young people: gender relations, masculinities and femininities
- the impacts of social and cultural change on children and young people
- learning, education, disability and technology
- the development of thinking, social relationships and representations
- international perspectives on childhood and youth.
Childhood and youth studies researchers have good contacts with pre-school institutions, schools, young people and families. We are an active inter-disciplinary group with a research income of over £1,800,000 since 2001.
Qualifications available
PhD, Professional Doctorate.
Fees
For detailed information on current fees visit Research degree Fees.
Entry requirements
Minimum 2:1 (or equivalent) plus either a masters degree or research methods training at masters level (or equivalent).
Potential research projects
- International perspectives on childhood and youth
- Contemporary issues in childhood and youth
- Children and young people’s agency, participation and voice, and children and young people as researchers
- Children and disadvantage
- Mother-infant relations, perinatal mental health and social development in infants
- Cognition and language development
- Alternative education and informal learning
- Literacy, language and narratives, particularly in relation to impairments
- The development of thinking, social relationships and representations
- Socio-cognitive development: collaborative learning; critical and creative thinking and peer relationships.
Current/recent research projects
- Parent-child shared book reading
- Executive functioning and lower-attaining adolescents in mainstream education
- What counts as happiness for children?
- Young masculinities in the South Wales valleys
- Ethnographic visual methods
- Perinatal mental health
- Representations of children in charity campaigns
- Children and young people’s experiences of living with a family health crisis
- Different understandings and experiences of children’s and young people’s rights
- Non-stereotypical imagery and Roma, Gypsy and Traveller people
- Ethnographic work on everyday violence in a slum community in Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Development of domain-general cognitive skills and their relation to language acquisition
- Social inclusion/exclusion in artmaking in Czech Republic early years settings.
Potential supervisors
Links