Keele University Prospectus Undergraduate | 2016 | Page 86

PUBLIC POLICY AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

Education
Overview

The Education programme explores education from
many different angles, including how it relates to the
economy, how it has been shaped historically, how
it affects people’s life chances, how it helps form
their identities, how those who work in education are
organised and how learners learn.
This type of experience will be important if you
wish to continue onto a PGCE or other teacher
training course. In many respects it has a strongly
contemporary focus. During the second year you will
have the opportunity to apply for the new Education
Placement module which provides an opportunity
for you to gain first hand experience in schools.
This type of experience will be important if you
wish to continue onto a PGCE or other teacher
training course.
Education combines the academic study of education
with preparation for work, placing a strong emphasis
on the development of your skills as an independent
researcher and collaborative colleague. We welcome
students with a broad range of backgrounds; we
aim to ensure that the course is broad and flexible
enough to respond to your needs and interests.

Course content

If you enrol on the dual honours programme you will
take two educational studies modules per semester.
For the single honours programme this will be three.
One of these will be a core compulsory module and
the other will be selected from a range of elective
modules. Core modules provide a foundation for
the programme as a whole. Through the choice of
electives, you may wish to follow one of two strands
through the programme:
• Education for teaching (for those interested in
teaching as a career)
• Education as social policy (for those interested in
the study of education as an academic subject in
the context of a social science perspective)
All core modules, and some of the electives on offer,
are relevant to both strands. The programme is also
flexible enough to enable you to follow your interests
through the programme, whether this is in secondary
teaching or the study of childhood from either a
teaching/early years focus or from a sociology or
social policy perspective.

First year
Core modules:
Understanding Learning focuses on established
theories of learning and also on your own
learning processes in higher education to answer
key questions such as: Is learning a matter of
conditioning? What is the relationship between
language and learning? Why do some people learn
easily and others struggle? What are the most
effective learning strategies to adopt?
Education in Britain covers the period of compulsory
state education in Britain (i.e. 1870-2015), from a
historical and sociological perspective. The emphasis
falls on contemporary educational issues, in school
and higher education, and it also seeks to draw in
part from your own educational experiences.
Elective modules:
Back to the Future: Issues in the History of
Schooling focuses on the key moments in the
development of schooling from the 1800s to 1944.
You are encouraged to draw on a range of media
including film and literature to explore the issues.
Childhood, Policy and Education explores a range of
institutional and other discourses in which childhood
is encoded including media, literature, art and the law
but there is a particular focus on the role of the state
in current constructions of childhood.
Digital Technologies will explore the use of
contemporary technologies in educational contexts.
Too Poor to Learn? Poverty, Education and Social
Policy is concerned with the problem of poverty
and how it relates to education as part of a wider
social policy.
Second year
Semester one core module:
Education Matters: Contemporary Issues
and Debates in Education
Semester two core module:
Research Strategies and Methods in Education
You may then choose an elective either from
education or another programme to study alongside
these core modules.
Education electives include:
• Comparative Education
• Education Placement
• Issues in Public Education
• Play, Power and Pedagogy
• Reflective Teaching
• Special Education

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