Education (Child Development and Education) (Taught)

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2025). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas.

The MSc in Education (Child Development and Education) is a taught, one-year full-time course combining lectures, seminars, and workshops. It includes research training and a dissertation on child development and education topics.

The MSc Education (Child Development and Education) aims to promote a critical understanding of theories and research on child development and their relevance to the design and evaluation of educational programmes and policies in diverse contexts. It also aims to promote a critical understanding of the current challenges for a global and inclusive science of child development.

Course structure
You will participate in lectures, seminars, and workshops. Together, the course will provide opportunities for you to deepen your understanding of child development theories and their relevance to decisions about children’s education and wellbeing.

The course is structured with two papers that focus on the disciplinary underpinnings to child development and education, one taken in the first term and one taken in the second term. Two further papers in the first term aim to develop your research skills. In the second term, you will take a further methods option module and one further option module from a selection of disciplinary-focused modules that will be confirmed at the beginning of the course.

In addition, you will complete either field work or conduct secondary data analysis for your master's dissertation.

Teaching involves a combination of tutor and student input, including group activities and students’ presentations. You will benefit from the expertise available through the Quantitative Methods Hub and the Qualitative Methods Hub at the Department of Education. You will also benefit from access to seminars across the wider university.

Research in the department is organised around three major themes:

• Language, Cognition and Development

• Policy, Economy and Society

• Learning: Pedagogy, Learning and Knowledge

Within each of these themes there are several research groups and centres. All staff and doctoral students belong to one or more of these research groups, each of which has its own seminar programme to which graduate students often contribute. In addition, the department as a whole sponsors regular seminars and public lectures which attract distinguished national and international speakers.

You are encouraged to explore the department's website and find out about the research carried out by the course team and the Children Development and Learning research group.