MA Humanitarianism and Conflict Response

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2026, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MA (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £14,700
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £30,700
• MA (part-time)
  UK students (per annum): £7,350
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £15,400

Further information for EU students can be found on our dedicated EU page.

The fees quoted above will be fully inclusive for the course tuition, administration and computational costs during your studies.

All fees for entry will be subject to yearly review and incremental rises per annum are also likely over the duration of courses lasting more than a year for UK/EU students (fees are typically fixed for International students, for the course duration at the year of entry). For general fees information please visit: postgraduate fees . Always contact the department if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

Self-funded international applicants for this course will be required to pay a deposit of £1000 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. This deposit will only be refunded if immigration permission is refused. We will notify you about how and when to make this payment.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

• Information on university funding, loans, and scholarships available on the Masters student funding page
• The Faculty of Humanities offered a range of scholarship opportunities for eligible applicants starting in September 2025. Please check back to confirm availability for September 2026 start.
• Please visit the school funding page for more information on subject funding available.
• Other funding for EU and international students is on our country-specific pages.

This course introduces students to a global history of children in modern situations of war and displacement. Drawing on specific historical case studies from the Canadian residential school system to the Vietnam war, it puts into perspective current issues that are at the forefront of public and policy debates (war on children in Syria and Yemen, child soldiers in Myanmar and South-Sudan, refugee youths in Western Europe, army recruitment of adolescents in the UK, etc.). As part of our discussions, we will address how history and humanities more generally can help child protection actors to be better prepared to work in complex environments.

• Reflect on the long-term influence of the past on public debates, policy frameworks, and humanitarian action particularly focused on children and young people
• Understand the wider usefulness of humanities and social sciences for the humanitarian sector, especially in matters involving children and young people
• Deepen critical reasoning, intellectual curiosity, and critical engagement with the humanitarian sector past and present
• Strengthen written and oral communication skills
• Engage critically with a wide range of academic and field-oriented literature

The principal teaching and learning methods will be the lecture that will include class exercises and student-led discussion. Students will have to do some guided reading and address specific questions.

All materials will be available on Blackboard via a weekly Express page.

10x2 hours lecture

11x2 hours office hours

• Gain a global understanding and historical overview of the experiences of children and young people in war and displacement
• Learn about specific historical and recent case studies
• Identify the evolutions of legal, practical, and cultural understandings of childhood and child protection
• Grasp the challenges of conducting historical and social research with children

• Critically engage with a wide range of disciplines and materials
• Familiarise yourself with many different geographical and chronological settings
• Develop a critical understanding of the methodological challenges of history writing and their relevance beyond the discipline.
• Further develop awareness of current humanitarian issues around children in war and displacement and their longer histories

• Gain a strong understanding of policy brief writing
• Demonstrate analytical and debating skills with peers and tutor
• Demonstrate efficiency and creativity in writing
• Show effective use of library resources and search engine to gather information

• Interpretation and argumentation (written and oral)
• Communication
• Interpersonal skills
• Project and time management
• Cultural and ethical awareness

Assessment method	Formative or Summative	Weighting within unit
Policy Brief	Formative	40%
Essay proposal	Summative	N/A
Essay	Formative	60%
Short summary identifying key takeaways of each class	Summative	N/A

Feedback method	Formative or Summative
Written feedback on assignments	Summative
Written feedback on research proposal	Formative
Informal guidance during seminars	Formative
Peer review and oral feedback in class	Formative
1-to-1 feedback during office hours	Formative

 

• Abebe Tatek. 'Reconceptualising children's agency as continuum & interdependence', Social Sciences, 8:3 (2019)
• Davey Eleanor. HPG Policy Brief: Humanitarian history in a complex world (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2014).
• Heide Fehrenbach and Davide Rodogno. '"A horrific photo of a drowned Syrian child": Humanitarian photography and NGO media strategies in historical perspective', International Review of the Red Cross, 97 (2015),
• Honwana Alcinda. ‘Children's Involvement in War: Historical and Social Contexts’, The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, 1:1, (2008), 139-149.
• Kushner Tony. ‘Truly, madly, deeply … nostalgically? Britain’s on–off love affair with refugees, past and present’, Patterns of Prejudice, 52:2-3 (2018), 172-194.
• Oh Arissa. ‘From War Waif to Ideal Immigrant: The Cold War Transformation of the Korean Orphan’, Journal of American Ethnic History, 31:4 (2012), 34-55.
• Pignot Manon. ‘Drawing the Great War: Children's Representations of War and Violence in France, Russia, and Germany' in Mischa Honek and James Marten (eds). War and Childhood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 170-188.