Master of Arts and Sciences in Global Sustainable Development

at University of Warwick United Kingdom

Digital media today affect all aspects of everyday, professional and public life, and understanding its significance requires interdisciplinary knowledge. Based at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM) at the University of Warwick, the MA Programme in Digital Media and Culture is an advanced one-year postgraduate degree that addresses the role of digital technologies, media, and infrastructures in relation to culture, economics, politics, and society.

Drawing on multiple disciplines, the degree supports critical approaches to key topics in digital culture, including:

• Platformisation
• Participatory culture
• Media activism
• Digital labour and political economy
• Privacy and surveillance
• Behavioural design
• Data critique
• Environmental sustainability

Our teaching combines theory, research methods, and creative practice. By selecting from a diverse offering of modules, students will have, for instance, the opportunity to learn data analytics and visualisation, to engage with speculative design and media art, and to discuss concepts in fields ranging from software studies to environmental humanities.

Based at a research centre promoting cutting-edge scholarship in these areas, our degree is primarily research-driven. MA students will be encouraged to select their own path through the degree and contribute to the culture of CIM by attending invited talks, participating in workshops, and organising interdisciplinary symposiums.

By studying linguistics together with French, you will explore the fascinating human capacity for language, while also building your fluency in French. As a linguist, you will learn about the structure and function of language, and about relationships between language and society.

You will also study and practice written and oral communication in French, and learn broadly about communicating across languages and cultures. Your skills in linguistic analysis will support your language learning, and your knowledge of French will complement your work as a linguist. This course opens many career opportunities that require the knowledge and skills of both a modern language and a deep understanding of language, culture and communication.

(75% linguistics, 25% French).

Study abroad

If you wish to spend a year abroad (which we thoroughly recommend), this will take place in your third year, meaning that you will complete your degree in four years instead of three. All students have the opportunity to apply for an intercalated year abroad at one of our partner universities. The Student Mobility Team offers support for these activities, and the Department's dedicated Study Abroad Co-ordinator can provide more specific information and assistance.

This joint degree gives you an in-depth knowledge of French language and culture while developing your ability as an analyst of international economic phenomena. 50% of your degree will be in Economics and 50% in the School of Modern Languages.

The French side of your degree will extend your understanding of the language, literature, culture, society and politics of France and the Francophone world.

In Economics, you will study the choices of consumers, corporations, governments, networks and nations.

You will also develop a deep knowledge of global and local economic trends, institutions and policies. You will normally spend your second or third year abroad, consolidating and enhancing your learning.

Study abroad

We strongly recommend that you take a year abroad as part of your modern languages degree, if you are able to. If you are unable to take a year abroad you may move to a three-year degree. In such cases, you will be required to complete further language reinforcement work. You will also be encouraged to spend time abroad in other ways, during vacation times.

You will usually spend your year abroad doing one of three things:

• Working as a language assistant teaching English in a primary or secondary school
• Studying full-time at a partner university in your chosen country
• On a work placement

By studying linguistics together with Chinese, you will explore the fascinating human capacity for language, while also building your fluency in Chinese. As a linguist, you will learn about the structure and function of language, and about relationships between language and society.

You will also study and practice written and oral communication in Chinese, and learn broadly about communicating across languages and cultures. Your skills in linguistic analysis will support your language learning, and your knowledge of Chinese will complement your work as a linguist. This course opens many career opportunities that require the knowledge and skills of both a modern language and a deep understanding of language, culture and communication.

(75% linguistics, 25% Chinese).

Study abroad

• If you wish to spend a year abroad (which we thoroughly recommend), this will take place in your third year, meaning that you will complete your degree in four years instead of three. All students have the opportunity to apply for an intercalated year abroad at one of our partner universities.
• The Student Mobility Team offers support for these activities, and the Department's dedicated Study Abroad Co-ordinator can provide more specific information and assistance.

Our MSc in Economics and Data Science is for graduates in Economics who would like to pursue and specialise in Data Science and Machine Learning through a postgraduate-level degree. The course links economic theory and empirical economics with the fast developing field of Data Science. You will acquire knowledge and skills in the areas of macroeconomic and microeconomic theory, econometrics, big data, machine learning and coding. An 8,000-word dissertation provides an opportunity to explore your own interests across these fields of study.

You will be automatically enrolled on a pre-sessional Mathematics and Statistics programme to equip you with the relevant methodological skills you need to succeed.

By the end of the course you will have the knowledge of quantitative methods to analyse large amounts of data with the purpose of generating new findings and insights relevant to problems in Economics.

Skills from this degree
The course will give you a unique opportunity to acquire skills from two fields of economics and data science, including:

• Advanced training in economic analysis and techniques, with an emphasis on data science techniques and methods pertaining to applications in economics
• Acquisition, management and processing of large volumes of data
• Computer software and numeracy skills
• Analytical skills to think about national and international economics problems, policies and decision making

This course is designed to develop your knowledge and skills in leadership and management in an educational setting. This programme offers you a unique opportunity to customise your learning to match your professional background, needs and aspirations. Assessments are individually tailored making each topic highly relevant to your particular context.

To maximise your learning potential, you will receive individualised attention and the flexibility to select from a wide range of modules. The programme is research driven but with a strong focus on professional practice, making it suitable for establishing an academic career or pursuing middle and senior leadership roles in education organisations. At the end of the course, we anticipate that you will have developed reflective and critical capabilities, providing you with a sound basis for your next career move, alongside the necessary knowledge and skills to respond to a variety of educational leadership challenges within your organisation.

Skills from this degree

• Applying knowledge and understanding of research methods in planning, undertaking and evaluating a research project
• Informed understanding of concepts and theories of leadership and management in education, and their relationship
• Understanding of strategy and strategic perspectives in education
• Human resource management in education and its links with strategy
• Identifying factors affecting learner achievement and ways to improve it

This course has been designed to fulfil the specific needs of graduates interested in a management or leadership role within the complex health service sector. Healthcare organisations share many commonalities with production facilities, including the need for efficient process flow, change management, and quality standards.  

You will explore the principles, approaches, strategies and techniques to understand, model, analyse and manage complex healthcare systems. You will also learn to measure efficiency and improve effectiveness and productivity, without compromising quality or safety. Ultimately, you will gain the essential knowledge to manage the integration of people, systems, and technologies to ensure the delivery of consistent, high quality, person centric care.  

The course is suitable for graduates from a broad range of academic disciplines across technical, scientific, medical, management, and social sciences. Strong quantitative skills will be required.

Political Theory, Comparative Politics and the study of Political Systems provide the core of this degree, then you can choose options across the full range of modules or focus on specific pathways.

You will tackle questions relating to the nature and distribution of power, the advantages and disadvantages of different political systems, gendered and racialized aspects of politics, and the role of ideology in determining political outcomes. You will critique how politics works in a number of different nations and question the appropriate level to analyze politics from the individual to the global system.

You will also consider how the work of political theorists can help explain the ways in which politicians intervene in questions of economy, law-making, conflict and the regulation of our daily lives. You will apply these ideas to everyday political problems such as immigration, poverty, war and climate change.

The programme is designed for opening up professional development pathways for diverse groups of educational practitioners, Muslim educators and faith leaders who work within the context of formal and informal Islamic and general educational settings. The programme is also open to religious education practitioners who wish to deepen their knowledge and understanding of Islam and be able to respond effectively to the educational and spiritual needs of Muslim children and young people under their care.

Islamic Education is a new exciting interdisciplinary field of scholarly study, empirical research professional development. It has growing national and international interest among Muslim and wider education practitioners.

The programme enables students to develop critical academic competence in theory and practice of Islamic Education facilitating reflective practice among a specialist community of educational practitioners and researchers. Students will explore diverse perceptions of education and pedagogic practice in historical and contemporary Muslim societies, engage with modern educational theories, pedagogic models and develop essential research skills necessary to be able to identify personal areas of further research in the field. The course adopts an integrative approach to teaching leaning which facilitates student engagement through strategies of self-organised learning and blended learning i.e. combining online resources, platforms as well as face to face workshops, seminars and lectures.

The emphasis on the course will be on the importance of contemporary educational research into Islamic Education, especially research springing from the Social Sciences directed towards pedagogy and curriculum development. The course will enable students to develop the competence to ‘think educationally’ about Islam and critically examine the theory and practice of Islamic Education in the modern Muslim world and across the Muslim communities in the West.

Students will have the opportunity of critically examining the existing Islamic Education textbooks, curriculum and the syllabuses. Furthermore, they will discuss the educational challenges facing Muslim communities in the Western Diaspora with special reference to exploring the educational needs of Muslim youth. The course will critically examine how best to develop appropriate educational strategies to tackle religious extremism and address issues concerning the faith development of Muslim young people in Britain.

The course attracts a wider range of practitioners within the field of faith-based and religion-related practitioner education by explicitly identifying and responding to the professional development needs of practitioners engaged in Islamic Education. As such the programme, in a distinctive way, opens professional development pathways for diverse groups of Muslim educators, faith leaders and those who wish to engage with Islamic Education as an area of further academic development.

Skills from this degree

• Critically analyse and explain the origins and sources of Muslim Educational thought and practice as well as evaluate critically current theory, literature, research, advanced scholarship and methodologies in Islamic Education, Islamic Pedagogy and Education Studies
• Identify and critically analyse the contemporary educational issues and challenges facing diverse Muslim communities in contemporary Muslim majority and minority communities
• Application of research skills in developing and evaluating scholarly and empirical research in Islamic Education
• Develop competence to identify areas of research and structure personal research interests and projects in the field
• Deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively, make sound judgements in the absence of complete data, and communicate their conclusions clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences
• By adopting a learner-centred, inquiry-based delivery strategy, students will develop competence for reflective practice
• Demonstrate self-direction and originality in tackling and solving problems, and act autonomously in planning and implementing tasks at a professional or equivalent level

This MA programme provides you with a thorough grounding in the classics of Social and Political Thought, and a deep and varied engagement with their 20th and 21st century offshoots. It addresses key concepts and ideas that are central to the analysis of contemporary society, politics and culture. These include debates over the basis of contemporary capitalism, neoliberalism, biopolitics, ideology, and the fundamental question of what it means to be ‘social’ and/or ‘human’.

Skills from this degree

• Ability to analyse and evaluate complex intellectual ideas
• Ability to analyse and evaluate competing approaches to understanding the contemporary world
• Ability to build sophisticated and persuasive arguments from an array of sources
• Ability to carry out independent research
• Ability to write about complex ideas in a clear way