Childhood Studies (Including Placement Year)

Are you fascinated by children’s behaviour? What drives their development, what informs their behaviour and shapes their identity? Do you want to help children with emotional, social, behavioural and education difficulties? Why do some children falter through life’s ups and downs, whilst others seem to thrive in adversity and are more resilient? Do you want to make a difference to children’s lives? If so, this course is for you.

Children today face a wide range of new and challenging experiences, including unprecedented access to media, wider cultural diversity, online bullying and larger school numbers. Their early experiences of childhood affect them for the rest of their lives. You can make a positive contribution to these formative years.

Childhood studies is a vibrant and exciting field which has expanded in recent years to include knowledge from psychology, sociology and psychoanalysis. This course lays the foundations for a career working with infants and children, whether in education, health care or children’s services. You gain a solid understanding of child development, the ecology of childhood (the place of children in different societies) and consider the way our concepts of childhood shape and condition children’s lives. You will also learn about the direct work with children through undertaking a placement in each year of study where you can begin to make links between theory and practice. Assessment is mainly by course work.

Topics include:

• Psychosocial approaches

• Child development

• Attachment theory

• ADHD, developmental trauma and Autism

• Criminological approaches

• Play and infant observation

• The social history of childhood

• Children in literature

• Therapeutic work in groups

• Wellbeing and resilience

• Psychodynamics of teaching, learning

• Therapeutic work groups

Many of our courses offer a choice of optional modules to tailor your learning experience. More information about these can be found on the University of Essex website.