Woman and Child Abuse - MA

You will be required to have:

• a good honours degree in a relevant subject
• experience of developing/delivering policy or service provision in the field (though the course is also relevant to those with a professional interest in violence against women and children)
• extensive relevant professional experience may be acceptable if you do not have sufficient academic qualifications

If you don't meet the entry criteria for the MA you have the option of taking a core module as a short course and on successful completion of assessments, you can then apply to join the MA.

Everyone who applies for the course is interviewed, with importance placed on the statement of application. Please contact the course leader, Dr Maddy Coy, via m.coy@londonmet.ac.uk to talk about making an application or if you have any questions about the course.

All applicants must be able to demonstrate proficiency in the English language. Applicants who require a Tier 4 student visa may need to provide a Secure English Language Test (SELT) such as Academic IELTS. For more information about English qualifications please see our English language requirements.

The modules listed below are for the academic year 2017/18 and represent the course modules at this time. Modules and module details (including, but not limited to, location and time) are subject to change over time.

Year 1 modules include:

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  Researching Violence and Evaluating Interventions (core, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • autumn semester

  This module will focus on methodological approaches to researching forms of violence which are primarily targeted against women and children (e.g. domestic violence, rape, sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and trafficking, crimes in the name of honour, female genital mutilation, stalking and harassment) and evaluating support and prevention initiatives/interventions. Content will cover: feminist epistemologies and power in the research process; formulating research questions; ethical dilemmas and practices; survey methods, including prevalence data; qualitative research exploring women and children’s perspectives as well as those of perpetrators; creative and arts-based methods; policy-oriented research. The second section of the module will introduce approaches to evaluation and the specific issues, challenges and opportunities when creating knowledge through evaluating interventions with victim-survivors and perpetrators of violence.

  Read full details.
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  Sexual Exploitation of Children and Young People (core, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • summer studies

  This module runs in block format
  
  In 2015-16:
  5th, 6th, 19th and 20th May
  9th and 10th June

  This course focuses on sexual exploitation of children and young people in UK and global contexts. Sessions cover definitions and framings, including feminist debates on the sex industry, researching sexual exploitation, evidence and prevalence, abusers and coercers, policy and legislative approaches, and promising practices in intervention, protection and prevention. Specific forms of exploitation will be explored, such as trafficking, sex tourism, abusive images of children (including 'sexting'), and online grooming.

  Read full details.
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  Sexual Violence: Causes, Consequences and Interventions (core, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • spring semester

  This module runs in block mode.

  In 2015-16 this module should run in Spring Semester - 11th, 12th, 25th, 26th February and 10th ,11th March.

  This module will focus on forms of sexual violence in child and adulthood. We will address: incidence, prevalence and reporting; theoretical and explanatory frameworks; impacts and meaning for victims/survivors; persistence and change with respect to legal frameworks, the justice system and support services; perpetrators and approaches to prevention.

  Read full details.
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  Violence Against Women: Issues, Research and Policy (core, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • autumn semester

  This module runs in block mode.

  In 2014-15 it should run in Autumn Semester - 9, 10, 23, 24 October
  20 and 21 November

  This module introduces students to the range of forms of violence against women, their prevalence and consequences: intimate partner violence, rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, FGM and crimes in the name of honour. We will address explanatory frameworks and perspectives, including human rights, and critically assess current policy approaches.

  Read full details.
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  Woman and Child Abuse Dissertation (core, 60 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • autumn semester
  • spring semester
  • summer studies

  This triple weighted module provides the student with opportunity to conduct an extended investigation into a topic of their choice within the area of violence against women and/or children. Students will submit a dissertation of between 12,000 and 15,000 words.

  Read full details.
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  Children and Families: Policy and Practice (option, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • summer studies

  This module is Block delivered, over the Summer period

  Students are introduced to a range of policy initiatives relating to children and families, and practice implications for professionals are critically appraised.

  Read full details.
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  Crime and Offender Patterns (option, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • spring semester - Wednesday

  This module allows students to identify and critically assess patterns in specific forms of crime and offending behaviour, as well as to consider the prevalence, characteristics and typologies of specific types of offence. Models used to explain crime and offender patterns, as well as recidivism and desistance, will be considered. These will be related to the wider theoretical criminological field.

  To begin with, the module is structured around identifying and evaluating key patterns and characteristics of recorded crime and offending behaviour, with a particular (but not exclusive) emphasis on the UK. The module also aims to present and assess explanatory models used to explicate crime trends, and changes in offending patterns.

  The module then focuses on specific types of offence category (including violent and sexual offences, financial, organised crime and environmental crime), and identifies specific trends. As a corollary, the escalation of offending behaviour and the concept of criminal 'career' is evaluated.

  The third and final element of the module centres on an analysis of 'serial offenders', and the ways in which offender and geographic profiling might (or might not) assist in understanding and detecting such offenders.

  Read full details.
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  Human Rights and the International Order (option, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • spring semester - Thursday

  This module examines the theory and institutionalized practice of human rights and the significance of human rights politics for the structure of the present world order. It contextualises, analyzes, evaluates and applies various conceptions of human rights that are operative within international relations and within the study of international relations. Attention is paid to the transformation of state sovereignty by human rights discourse and practice. The relation of human rights to the international order is problematised in the context of the history and philosophy of human rights, liberalism and its critics and opponents, and institutions and systems of international governance and conflict.

  Read full details.
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  Human Security (option, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • spring semester - Tuesday afternoon

  This module examines the development of the concept of Human Security within the discipline of International Relations. It will explore its implications for our broad understanding of security. It will then examine its application to specific problems and policy areas ranging from the environment to food and disease. Finally, it will examine the concept’s operationalisation by key international bodies, such as the UN and the EU, and by individual states.

  Read full details.
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  Psychology and Crime (option, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • autumn semester - Tuesday morning

  This module will introduce students to the basic principles and psychological theories underlying criminal behaviour. It is assessed by coursework and taught jointly by the Criminology and Psychology Schools.

  Read full details.
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  Researching Public Services (option, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • spring semester - Monday

  The module enables students to design and conduct research in a public service setting (including that required for projects and dissertations), to understand key debates in public policy research and to bid for and evaluate bids for funding.

  Read full details.
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  Social Policy Themes and Priorities: Local, Regional and Global (option, 20 credits)

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  This module currently runs:

  • autumn semester - Thursday

  The module starts from the proposition that the study of social policy includes much more than the study of western welfare states. It examines critically the ways in which societies and communities from the local to the transnational, not just governments, address (or fail to address) basic needs. The module uses a selection of policy examples which aim to address a range of basic needs such as access to paid employment, healthcare, schooling, citizenship, family benefits, in and out of work benefits, pensions, affordable housing, adult care, early childhood education and care. It will look at aspects of these through various analytic lenses, including the impact of policies on social divisions, and the roles of neoliberalism, globalisation, social investment, human development, social development, antiracist and feminist perspectives. The module includes a ‘regional’ approach, covering some of the following: the European Union; Latin America; North America; sub-Saharan Africa; East Asia; the Indian sub-continent. The most prominent approaches to comparative social policy are pervasive, namely: regime analysis, path dependency/institutionalism, and convergent functionalism.

  Read full details.

"The course exceeded my original hopes and expectations. The knowledge of the staff within the unit was not only academic but was also informed by frontline work in the violence against women sector. This experience gave a depth and a passion to the lectures and course materials."
Woman and Child Abuse MA graduate

"The course has been rigorous and thorough and very enlightening. It strengthened my academic reading and writing and vastly improved my knowledge of the subject. The quality of the teaching is excellent."
Woman and Child Abuse MA graduate

"It has really shaped my way of working and given me so much important knowledge and awareness, and a conviction that we can all make a difference."
Woman and Child Abuse MA graduate

The course is particularly suited to those who are working in specialised services for women and children who have experienced violence. It is also excellent preparation for those who are wishing to establish careers in this sector.

Our graduates have gone on to key roles in policymaking or service delivery at local, regional and national levels, and some pursue further studies to PhD level, including with the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit.

Between 2016 and 2020 we're investing £125 million in the London Metropolitan University campus, moving all of our activity to our current Holloway campus in Islington, north London. This will mean the teaching location of some courses will change over time.

Whether you will be affected will depend on the duration of your course, when you start and your mode of study. The earliest moves affecting new students will be in September 2017. This may mean you begin your course at one location, but over the duration of the course you are relocated to one of our other campuses. Our intention is that no full-time student will change campus more than once during a course of typical duration.

All students will benefit from our move to one campus, which will allow us to develop state-of-the-art facilities, flexible teaching areas and stunning social spaces.

Please note, in addition to the tuition fee there may be additional costs for things like equipment, materials, printing, textbooks, trips or professional body fees.

Additionally, there may be other activities that are not formally part of your course and not required to complete your course, but which you may find helpful (for example, optional field trips). The costs of these are additional to your tuition fee and the fees set out above and will be notified when the activity is being arranged.