MSc in Equality Studies

The School adopts a student-centred approach and promotes a critical, emancipatory and feminist pedagogy that is carried through all aspects of the teaching and learning process. Teaching is dialogical and operates on the principle that students have much to bring to the learning experience, that students can learn from each other, and that staff can learn from students.

Assessment takes a variety of forms, spanning the traditional essay, public scholarship, collaborative work, and project work, including an elective minor dissertation. Extensive student feedback is sought for all modules, and this is used to review and revise subsequent courses, assignments and assessments.

• Apply their knowledge and understanding of the component areas of Equality Studies to new, unfamiliar, multi-disciplinary contexts
• Communicate their conclusions within the area of Equality Studies, and the knowledge and rationale underpinning these, to specialist and non-specialist audiences clearly and unambiguously
• Demonstrate an ability to integrate knowledge from a range of disciplines and in relation to a range of equality issues, and to handle the complexities involved in the analysis of inequality and the development of equality-related policies
• Demonstrate specialized, detailed, and advanced theoretical and conceptual knowledge and understanding of the issues and theories that constitute the interdisciplinary field of Equality Studies
• Develop and/or apply their ideas in the field of equality studies in an original way, either through research (as evidenced in a research paper prepared for assessment) or in a practical context
• Develop research design skills and work with established, feminist, and emancipatory research methods in the investigation and analysis of research problems relevant to the field of equality studies
• Evince a sophisticated, critical, and justice-oriented perspective on a range of social issues in order to promote equality as a collective social good, and be able to articulate and defend this position in public fora
• Explain current debates and controversies animating equality studies, in fields including egalitarian theory, feminist theory, legal studies, the economics of inequality, the sociology of inequality and international development
• Make use of the insights and findings of both published and student-produced research to inform students' own understandings of the field of equality studies and how they operate within it

Equality Studies graduates work in multiple fields, including politics, journalism, law, education, public policy, voluntary and community work, and human rights advocacy.

Alumni of the Master's in Equality Studies are employed by major national and international human rights and development organisations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations.

Core Modules

• Sociology of Inequality
• Egalitarian Theory
• Feminist & Egalitarian Research
• Master's Research Project

2 of the following options:

• Masculinities, Gender, and Equality
• Development and the Global South
• Critical Geographies: Spatialising Power and Inequalities
• Gender, Sexuality, and the Body: The Politics of Belonging
• International Refugee Law
• Advanced Disability Studies
• Disability Policy Legislation
• Organised Violence and Society
• Ideas, Ideology in Public Policy
• Equalities, Social Justice, and Children's Learning
• Human Rights Law and Equality
• Critical Political Economy
• Decoloniality and Intersectionality Thinking
• International Migration Law
• Gender, Conflict-Related Harm & Transitional Justice
• Topics in Continental Philos
• Theories of Global Justice
• International Political Economy
• Theory of Human Rights
• Nationalism and Social Change

1 of the following options:

• Critical Political Economy
• Decoloniality and Intersectionality Thinking

The programme is aimed at students who wish to develop a career or further studies in the field of equality, or who wish to become advocates or activists for equality in civil society or politics. We welcome applicants from a wide range of backgrounds, with diverse experience and interests. Current students are of various nationalities and include recent graduates, community activists, educators, health care professionals, civil servants, and journalists. Please note that if you are intening to study this programme on a part time basis, classes do take place during normal working hours, though modules can be spread flexibly over the two years, subject to certain requirements (Egalitarian Theory always has to be taken in year 1, Feminist and Egalitarian Research and the Portfolio have to be taken in year 2).