Childhood and Youth: Theory and Practice BA (Hons)

Modules

• Year 1 at Sussex

  Your modules

  Core modules

  Core modules are taken by all students on the course. They give you a solid grounding in your chosen subject and prepare you to explore the topics that interest you most.

  Autumn teaching

  • Historical Childhoods: antiquity to the modern day
  • Introduction to Childhood and Youth

  Spring teaching

  • Children and Young People in Society
  • Inclusive Practices: Integrating Pedagogy into Real-World Education

  Your degree

  Your first year lays the foundation for understanding childhood and youth from multiple perspectives. These include sociology, psychology, anthropology, history and literature. You’ll explore how professionals promote children’s rights, democracy, justice and inclusion. Your five-day placement in a service for children and young people is the highlight of Year 1. Your placement gives you the opportunity to reflect on the connection between theory and practice.

  Teaching

  Teaching methods typically include seminars that involve group work and discussion, with some interactive lectures, and a practice-based placement in a child or youth organisation.

  

  10%: Lecture
  70%: Seminar
  20%: Practical

  Assessment

  Assessment methods typically include coursework with a range of creative and authentic tasks. These are designed to develop your academic understanding, critical thinking and reflective skills, and to support their application to practice-based contexts.

  Contact hours and workload

  This year of study includes approximately 1,200 hours of work. This breaks down into about 210 hours of contact time and about 990 hours of independent study.

  Engage and actively participate throughout your studies to get the most out of your course. 

• Year 2 at Sussex

  Your modules

  Core modules

  Core modules are taken by all students on the course. They give you a solid grounding in your chosen subject and prepare you to explore the topics that interest you most.

  Autumn teaching

  • Parents and Families Level 5
  • Rights and Legal Frameworks

  Spring teaching

  • Becoming a Researcher
  • Collaborative Education in Action
  • Mental Health and Wellbeing

  Your degree

  In your second year, you’ll deepen your knowledge in areas such as legal and policy frameworks, family diversity, and factors influencing mental health and wellbeing. Building on your understanding of inclusion, you’ll work in groups to design and deliver sessions with secondary-school students. Through real-work engagement, you’ll develop teamwork, communication and reflective skills.

  Teaching

  Teaching methods typically include seminars that involve group work and discussion, some interactive lectures, and workshops focused on planning school-based placement sessions.

  

  15%: Lecture
  70%: Seminar
  15%: Practical

  Assessment

  Assessment methods typically include coursework with diverse creative and authentic tasks, completed by an open-book examination. These methods are designed to deepen your academic understanding, enhance criticality, and strengthen your collaborative and reflective skills relevant to practice contexts.

  Contact hours and workload

  This year of study includes approximately 1,200 hours of work. This breaks down into about 177 hours of contact time and about 1,023 hours of independent study.

  Engage and actively participate throughout your studies to get the most out of your course. 

• Experience Year

  Study abroad (optional)

  Apply to study abroad – you’ll develop an international perspective and gain an edge when it comes to your career. Find out where your course could take you

  If your application to study abroad is successful, you’ll have to meet the academic requirements at Sussex and also at the partner university. Find out more about studying abroad as a Sussex student

   

  We spend five days each year on a placement, which is a great opportunity to apply what we’ve learnt on the course.”Yasmin Ahmed
  Childhood and Youth: Theory and Practice BA

  Please note that if you’re receiving – or applying for – USA federal Direct Loan funds, you can’t transfer to the version of your course with an optional study abroad period in any country or optional placement in the USA if the number of credits for the placement/internship exceeds 25% of the total credits for your course. Find out more about American Student Loans and Federal Student Aid

• Year 3 at Sussex

  Your modules

  Core modules

  Core modules are taken by all students on the course. They give you a solid grounding in your chosen subject and prepare you to explore the topics that interest you most.

  Autumn and spring teaching

  • Research Minded Project

  Autumn teaching

  • Digital Lives
  • Pathways into Practice: Values, Identity and Professionalism
  • Therapeutic Work

  Spring teaching

  • Beyond Borders: Global Lives and Connections

  Your degree

  Your final year advances your knowledge in young people’s digital lives and therapeutic approaches. You’ll explore the impact of global forces such as economic change, migration and historical legacies. You’ll undertake an independent research project in an area that particularly interests you. You’ll also take part in applied professional development activities tailored to your career aspirations. This helps to strengthen both your theoretical knowledge and professional identity.

  Teaching

  Teaching methods typically include seminars and workshops involving group work and discussion, and applied professional learning that might include visiting, shadowing or informally interviewing professionals, and meeting a careers adviser.

  

  50%: Seminar
  50%: Practical

  Assessment

  Assessment methods typically include coursework with diverse creative and authentic tasks. They are designed to consolidate your academic expertise and foster a strong professional identity, preparing you for your chosen career pathway in the field of childhood and youth.

  Contact hours and workload

  This year of study includes approximately 1,200 hours of work. This breaks down into about 221 hours of contact time and 979 hours of independent study.

  Engage and actively participate throughout your studies to get the most out of your course. 

Customise your course

• Progressive Futures electives

  Year 1

  Autumn teaching

  • Digital and Data Futures
  • Environmental Sustainability
  • Human Flourishing

  Spring teaching

  • (Re)Imagining Future Worlds through Humour and Play
  • Adapting Literature
  • American Political Culture
  • Art and Artists
  • Black British History
  • Climate Justice: Policy & Activism in a Time of Global Crisis
  • Gender Across Cultures
  • Gendering the Life Course
  • Global Cultures, Local Lives
  • Global Issues
  • Global Migration in a Digital Age
  • Inclusive Practice with Young People
  • Introduction to Human Rights
  • Introduction to the European Union
  • Leading Social Change: Communication and Activism
  • Mental Health and Madness: exploring socio-cultural approaches
  • Music and Society
  • People, Culture and the Global Economy
  • Principles of Cognitive Science
  • Psychology Now: Contemporary Approaches to Understanding Behaviour
  • Society, State and Humanity
  • The Age of Adolescence: Reading 20th Century Youth Culture
  • The Look of America
  • The Meaning of Life
  • Understanding the Criminal Justice System

  Year 2

  Autumn teaching

  • Access, Equity and Gender
  • Analysing Film (E)
  • Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Law
  • Biological Psychology
  • Business in World Politics
  • Crime and Criminal Justice
  • Decoding Cultures of Technology and Social Change
  • Feminist Philosophy
  • Forest Food Gardens: The Theory and Practice of Food Growing
  • Global News Cultures
  • Inclusion, Diversity and Equity in Education
  • Inter-cultural Encounters
  • Landscapes of Resistance and Social Justice
  • Leading Social Change: Taking Action
  • Migration, Identity and Rights
  • Police and Policing (Elective)
  • Political and Social Change in Contemporary Europe
  • Race and Ethnicity in US History
  • Sleep and Mental Health
  • Sustainability and Climate Justice
  • Video Games: Creative & Critical Writing

  Spring teaching

  • Activist Skills for Global Justice and Sustainable Futures
  • Advertising (E)
  • American City
  • Autism and Education
  • Clinical Psychology and Mental Health
  • Contemporary Issues in Law
  • Creative Coding
  • Creative Production in the Arts
  • Decolonising Education: Knowledge, Power and Sustainable Societies
  • Digital Law Toolkit
  • Education, Peacebuilding and Conflict
  • Everyday Digital: Generation, Life-Course and Expertise
  • Exploring Death and Dying; Cultural, Theoretical and Practice Perspectives
  • Exploring Teaching in Schools
  • Forest Food Gardens: Communities, Ecologies and Collaboration
  • Language, Identity and Nation
  • Language, Mind and Brain
  • Making Sense of Complexity: Tools for Addressing Real World Sustainability Challenges
  • Philosophy of Race
  • Psychology of Cognitive Processes
  • Punishment and Penology
  • The Far Right and the Politics of Immigration
  • The Liberal World Order - in Crisis
• Languages and TESOL electives

  You can choose to study language electives for two or three years. This allows you to add the language to the title of your degree:

  • if you study a language for two years, you could graduate with a title such as Psychology with proficiency in Japanese BSc (Hons)
  • if you study a language for three years, you could graduate with a title such as Psychology with Japanese BSc (Hons).

  Year 1

  Autumn teaching

  • Arabic Beginners A
  • Arabic Intermediate A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2A
  • Chinese Beginners A
  • Chinese Intermediate A
  • French Beginners A
  • French For Professional Purposes 1A
  • French Intermediate A
  • German Beginners A
  • German Intermediate A
  • Introduction to TESOL - Theory and Methodology 1
  • Italian Beginners A
  • Italian Intermediate A
  • Japanese Beginners A
  • Japanese Intermediate A
  • Spanish Beginners A
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1A
  • Spanish Intermediate A

  Spring teaching

  • Arabic Beginners B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2B
  • Chinese Beginners B
  • Chinese Intermediate B
  • French Beginners B
  • French For Professional Purposes 1B
  • French Intermediate B
  • German Beginners B
  • German Intermediate B
  • Italian Beginners B
  • Italian Intermediate B
  • Japanese Beginners B
  • Japanese Intermediate B
  • Spanish Beginners B
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1B
  • Spanish Intermediate B
  • TESOL Teaching Practice 1

  Year 2

  Autumn teaching

  • Arabic Advanced A
  • Arabic Beginners A
  • Arabic Intermediate A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 3A
  • Chinese Advanced A
  • Chinese Beginners A
  • Chinese Intermediate A
  • French Advanced A
  • French Beginners A
  • French For Professional Purposes 1A
  • French for Professional Purposes 2A
  • French Intermediate A
  • German Advanced A
  • German Beginners A
  • German Intermediate A
  • Introduction to TESOL - Theory and Methodology 1
  • Italian Advanced A
  • Italian Beginners A
  • Italian Intermediate A
  • Japanese Advanced A
  • Japanese Beginners A
  • Japanese Intermediate A
  • Spanish Advanced A
  • Spanish Beginners A
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1A
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 2A
  • Spanish Intermediate A
  • TESOL Theory and Methodology 2

  Spring teaching

  • Arabic Advanced B
  • Arabic Beginners B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 3B
  • Chinese Advanced B
  • Chinese Beginners B
  • Chinese Intermediate B
  • French Advanced B
  • French Beginners B
  • French For Professional Purposes 1B
  • French for Professional Purposes 2B
  • French Intermediate B
  • German Advanced B
  • German Beginners B
  • German Intermediate B
  • Italian Advanced B
  • Italian Beginners B
  • Italian Intermediate B
  • Japanese Advanced B
  • Japanese Beginners B
  • Japanese Intermediate B
  • Spanish Advanced B
  • Spanish Beginners B
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1B
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 2B
  • Spanish Intermediate B
  • TESOL Teaching Practice 1
  • TESOL Teaching Practice 2

These electives are designed to help you explore key global challenges with world-leading experts from across the University and beyond.

Whichever path you take, you’ll develop key skills to tackle the complexity of contemporary challenges. This will help improve your employment prospects and help you contribute to creating progressive futures for all.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2026/27. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.

We’ll do our best to provide as much optional choice as we can, but timetabling constraints mean it may not be possible to take some module combinations. The structure of a small number of courses means that the order of modules or the streams you choose may determine whether modules are core or optional. This means that your core modules or options may differ from what’s shown here.