- UCAS course code
- C812
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Bachelor of Science (BSc)
BSc Educational Psychology
Explore the application of psychological theories and principles in the context of education.
Duration: 3 years
Year of entry: 2025
UCAS course code: C812 / Institution code: M20
- Typical A-level offer: AAB
- Typical contextual A-level offer: BBB
- Refugee/care-experienced offer: BBC
- Typical International Baccalaureate offer: 35 points overall with 6,6,5 at HL
Course unit details:
Key Issues in Education
| Unit code | EDUC11100 |
|---|---|
| Credit rating | 20 |
| Unit level | Level 1 |
| Teaching period(s) | Full year |
| Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
The course unit will cover analyses and commentary on the key debates within contemporary educational theory and practice of education, and relate this to real-world issues. Several concepts in educational research emerge, including:
• The hidden curriculum
• Internationalisation
• School choice
• Academic transitions
• Educational leadership
• Gender, sexuality and education
• Mental health and education
• Education and development
The course unit offers a foundation for the more in-depth and specialist content offered elsewhere on the BSc Education programme.
Aims
This unit aims to:
- Introduce students to a range of critical educational debates drawn from both national and international contexts.
- Explore, with students, dominant and non-hegemonic discourses on education from a range of perspectives
- Examine and apply insights from global scholarship to contemporary educational issues.
- Critically evaluate how concepts of education and schooling are positioned within wider social, economic and political policies and institutional practices within society.
Learning outcomes
Upon successful completion of the unit, students should be able to: |
Teaching and learning methods
Weekly teaching and learning sessions will involve a combination of lectures, seminars, group discussions, and academic writing. Students will be expected to engage with journal articles, book chapters, blogs posts , videos and documentaries in relation to the themes and issues. In most weeks, after each lecture, students will undertake some writing, in form of mini essays in Blackboard.
Knowledge and understanding
- Engage critically with a range of scholarly materials related to educational theory and practice.
- Independently source and critique literature related to educational theory and practice.
- Explain and justify their own interpretations of selected key discourses to contemporary debates education.
- Develop and present coherent and detailed arguments in a variety of oral and written formats for specific purposes
Intellectual skills
- Apply conceptual tools in describing and commenting on educational theory and practice.
- Demonstrate critical evaluation skills through analysis and application of educational concepts and theories to local and national contexts.
- Demonstrate sensitivity to the values, viewpoints, and interests of others
Practical skills
- Search subject-specific electronic and other resources effectively to identify appropriate and relevant primary and secondary information.
- Analyse and interpret research and conceptual papers relating to educational issues.
- Apply and communicate, orally and textually, information in literature to support argument in response to individual and group tasks.
- Critically reflect on own learning.
Transferable skills and personal qualities
- Work effectively with others in a group and meet obligations to group members, as well as tutors.
- Demonstrate cross-cultural sensitivity and effective interpersonal communication skills
- Develop and make use of virtual learning environments and information technology-related skills to search databases and other internet resources for literature
- Acquire and develop the capacity to produce documents using word processing and presentation programmes.
Assessment methods
1 x 2000 word group report (50%)
1 x 3000 word article review (50%)
Feedback methods
Feedback via Blackboard
Recommended reading
This is an indicative list of some recommended literature related to topics covered in the Key Issues in Education course. Further advice and guidance for specific reading is provided via BlackBoard. To access the links, you should be signed into My Manchester (see ‘Reading Lists Online’ in Blackboard for extended version).
The Hidden Curriculum
Apple, M.W. (2019). Ideology and curriculum. Fourth edition. New York: Routledge.
Gillborn, D. (1992). Citizenship, ‘race’ and the hidden curriculum. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 2(1), pp.57-73. Available online https://doi.org/10.1080/0962021920020104
hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to transgress : Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.
Jackson, P. W. (1990). Life in classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press. https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/11u30da/alma9919514401631
International Education
Knight, Jane. (2004). “Internationalization Remodelled: Definition, Approaches, and Rationales.” Journal of Studies in International Education, 8(1), pp. 5–31.
Mok, K.H. and Marginson, S. (2021). Massification, diversification and internationalisation of higher education in China: Critical reflections of developments in the last two decades. International Journal of Educational Development, 84, pp.102405.
Stein, S. (2016). Rethinking the Ethics of Internationalization: Five Challenges for Higher Education. Interactions, 12(2).
Scheduled activity hours
Practical classes & workshops
26
Tutorials
34
Independent study hours
Independent study
140
Teaching staff
Staff member
Role
Loretta Anthony-Okeke
Unit coordinator
Additional notes