Criminology and Education Studies (joint honours)

Emotional Development and Attachment

From birth to adulthood, children experience a wide range of emotional phases. You’ll study this process and gain core professional knowledge for working with children in a variety of settings, including schools, specialist provision and care settings. You’ll get to grips with the key phases of emotional development, and examine what disrupts development. You’ll build strong skills in how to manage behaviour, while understanding emotional needs and how we express them. You’ll also explore neuroscientific evidence in identifying emotional and attachment needs.

Crime and Intersectionality

In this module, you’ll get to grips with intersectionality - a way of understanding someone’s identity as made of characteristics such as race, gender and class. Intersectionality offers you a unique way to study crime. You’ll discover how criminal justice institutions, such as the police and criminal courts, respond to and discriminate against different social groups.

Alternative Educational Provisions

How can alternative education support students to achieve their best, whatever their situation? You’ll gain a strong knowledge of alternative educational provisions. These are provisions made by local authorities for pupils who, because of factors such as exclusion or illness, would not otherwise receive a suitable education. You’ll gain core critical skills as you explore a wide range of alternative educational provisions, and how they work in real life to impact student learning, well-being and achievement.

Researching Crime: Methods, Approaches and Ethics

In this module, you’ll explore the key research methods of Criminology. You’ll gain invaluable critical skills, as you look at:

• research methods
• design 
• processes
• outcomes.

You’ll also understand the ethics of research, including:

• the requirements of conducting research with vulnerable populations.
• how your identity can help or hinder research relationships.

Core Texts in Education

You’ll engage in pressing debates about education today, using classic writers from Plato to Paulo Freire. You’ll gain core analytical skills as you carry out an intense study of three contrasting texts from three different historical periods that have shaped education.

You’ll ask leading questions as you engage with the texts, and explore the status of knowledge, how education helps humans to flourish and the vocation of the educator. You’ll compare the texts with contemporary debates in educational policy and practice, and consider what we can learn from thinkers of the past.

The Social World of Childhood and Youth

Do you remember how you felt as a child? We’ll explore the world of children, and how our ideas about childhood have changed through time. You’ll consider the impact of different models of socialisation on children. And you’ll explore the factors - cultural, structural and experimental - which develop a child’s identity.  We’ll make good use of life and historical material.

Children with Diverse Needs

Public Criminology

In this module, you’ll dive into real world problems of crime and criminal justice. You’ll apply your criminology knowledge to:

• find solutions to key questions of crime and justice
• find solutions to problems in current practice
• explore how these solutions can inform future research. 

You’ll examine case studies from current policy and practice. You’ll apply the insights of:

• practitioners
• policy-makers
• politicians 

currently working in criminal justice. You’ll gain a strong understanding of how criminology works in real life. And you’ll explore why there is a disconnect between the classroom, and criminology in practice. 

Crimes of the State and Resistance

Explore crimes and harms, perpetrated by the state. Including the potential to resist state-perpetrated atrocities.

You will examine historical and contemporary case studies. Along with theoretical concepts from a state crime framework. Building your criminological understanding about the:

• nature
• objectives
• motivations 
• and denial of state crime. 

You will engage and explore the resistance and challenges within, including:

• social movement activism
• legal challenges 
• and armed liberation struggles.

Globalisation and Crime

In this module, you’ll use comparative data (where you compare multiple sets of data) to understand criminal behaviour across nations. You’ll explore criminological issues and global harms, like:

• human trafficking
• organised crime
• cybercrime
• terrorism
• eco crime.

You’ll also analyse crime patterns, and responses to criminal activities in different parts of the world. You’ll also look at how ideas and ways of regulating crime occur within different environments, and our now increasingly connected global society.

Green Criminology

You'll engage with the emerging field of Green Criminology. You'll learn the key theoretical concepts of green criminology and environmental justice. 

You'll focus on understanding Green Criminology as a transnational field. Including the social issues impacting individuals on a global scale.

Children’s Literature

Independent Study

This module gives you the chance to do independent study on a topic that fascinates you. With support from expert tutors, you’ll submit a proposal for independent study. We’ll agree to a programme of work and assessments, tailored to your interests.

Criminology Work Based Learning

In this module, you’ll kick-start your career, and gain key work experience in organisations related to crime. You’ll do a placement, or work-based learning activity in:

• a public sector organisation
• a non-governmental organisation (NGO)
• a voluntary organisation.

Whether working with the police, prison services, schools or charities, you’ll gain invaluable skills for your future career. You won’t engage directly with clients or service users, but you’ll gain a strong knowledge of how organisations identify and fight crime. 

Dissertation / Interdisciplinary Dissertation

You’ll carry out independent research on a topic that fascinates you. You’ll produce a dissertation of about 10,000 words, demonstrating an in-depth understanding of substantive and methodological issues in your specific area of study. And you’ll have the support of an expert tutor in your field.

Controversial and Contemporary Research in Education

Why is education such a hotly argued topic? You’ll investigate controversial issues in education from previous modules, and explore new and pressing ideas. You’ll gain core teamwork and research skills for your future career, as you pursue these issues through group discussion and individual research. You’ll build key critical skills for your degree, as you evaluate evidence from sources ranging from popular media to policy texts, as well as academic texts on education. 

You’ll also enjoy seminars with guest speakers, where you’ll engage with the latest educational debates and expertise.

The Carnival and Pleasures of Crime

Why do people enjoy committing crimes? How might crime offer identity and purpose? In this module, you’ll explore the role of:

• pleasures
• performance
• identity 
• meaning 

in criminal acts. You’ll think about the multiple meanings and actions that crime holds for different people across time. You’ll consider the social benefits of crimes and resistance to the law. And you’ll explore how different interpretations of crime might affect crime control and criminal justice.

Technology and Learning: Dilemmas, Challenges and Opportunities

What impact does technology have on the learning process? You’ll critically evaluate different approaches to e-learning. You’ll explore the part technology can play in creating powerful learning environments. You’ll look at how technology can enhance students’

• thinking processes
• engagement in learning 
• knowledge building.

You’ll gain key analytical skills as you discuss a range of perspectives on learning, and how to design the most effective digital learning environments.

Picturing the Criminal: From Mugshot to Fine Art

In this module, you’ll study images of crime, including:

• the world’s most troubling mugshots
• early crime-scene photographs
• bloody and brutal paintings
• criminal courtroom artworks.

Seeing and picturing is a key way of understanding crime. You’ll get to grips with the fast-growing field of visual criminology. You’ll discover the importance of images at the birth of criminology, and how they perpetuate stereotypes about race and gender. You’ll also consider why, because of this, criminologists have been sceptical about working with images. 

You’ll have the rare chance to go behind the scenes, and visit Western-Europe’s most unique visual arts and social scientific-imaging collections, held in Oxford at:

• the Pitt Rivers Museum
• the Ashmolean Museum

Policing, Security and Society

This is a key time to study policing in western countries. The response to crime in the west is changing fast as policing moves towards privatisation in the digital age. 

You’ll analyse modern policing in the west and its former colonies. You’ll examine the history of policing. You’ll compare policing in other countries to policing in the UK. You’ll also look at the rise of neo-colonial policing today (the use of economic, political and cultural pressures to control other countries).

You’ll explore areas like: 

• securitization
• militarization 
• transnationalism 
• human trafficking.

Inclusion: Diverse Perspectives

Why have some children been excluded from education? How can we work to include various groups in education? You’ll explore the experiences of children who have been marginalised or excluded, and how this impacts the child. You’ll gain core analytical skills as you explore and critique different models and practices for improving inclusion.

The Prison and Imprisonment

Should we punish prisoners, or support them to re-enter society? In this module, you’ll dive into the key issues of prisons. You’ll consider modern prisons, globally and historically. And you’ll examine prisons through:

• prisoners
• prison staff
• wider society. 

You'll trace the evolution of the prison - from the rehabilitative ideal of the post-war period, to the greater focus on punishment today. You’ll look at how political parties use prison policies to win votes, rather than reduce crime. 

You’ll dive into the inner workings of prisons, from governance to administration. You’ll look at the routines of prison life, and how prisoners cope with, and give meaning to them. You’ll consider sentence progression for different types of prisoners. And you’ll explore how well prisons prepare inmates for life after release. 

Dealing with Drugs: Control and Intoxication

In this module, you’ll bust some key assumptions around psychoactive drugs. You’ll look at why we use them and how we control them in society. You’ll investigate:

• criminological
• sociological
• historical 

and policy insights, to explore the relationship between drug use, individuals and public morality. You’ll gain key critical skills as you debate drug policies, and how we can lessen the harm of substance abuse. You’ll look at alternative ways to regulate drugs than our current ‘war on drugs’ mentality. And you’ll explore the future of synthetic drugs.