M.A. European Youth Studies: European Development Project

Target group and outcomes

The course explicitly seeks to recruit a balanced composition of students from throughout Europe and potentially beyond, drawn from young youth researchers, non-formal youth educators/trainers and youth workers, public administration and youth services staff. Applicants with mixed and varied educational and professional qualifications and experience are of particular interest, since this is likely to favour a critical and creative blend for intellectual, personal and professional development in the course community.

The consortium’s first estimates suggest a potential target group of some 1500 potentially appropriate candidates in Europe who would be interested to register for this course. The first phase of implementation foresees an annual intake of 30 students and hence a regular student body of 60 students in any one academic year. The consortium will conduct an integrated recruitment and selection process. For those applicants without conventional entry qualifications (that is, not holding a first higher education degree in a relevant discipline), recognition of prior learning procedures will be developed and, should this prove worthwhile, an access course can be designed.

Key challenges include, firstly, maintaining quality simultaneously with enabling open access and recognition of prior experience, and secondly, assuring complementarity and progression with respect to other kinds and levels of learning opportunities for specialists in the youth field.

The M.A. EYS should lead to acquiring high-level knowledge, understanding and application capacity with respect to youth studies as a specialist research field; comparative and intercultural research methods; national and European youth policy and the European institutional context; development of management, leadership and teamwork capacity; problem-solving competence for implementation activities; intercultural, social and communication competence development. Graduates should have learned how to ‘translate’ between research, policy and practice issues, concerns and contexts.

Course graduates should be qualified for broad-based professional careers in academic, educational, social, administrative, management and human resource development contexts, including European and international organisations, NGOs and companies. M.A. EYS graduates may decide to continue on to a Ph.D. and pursue academic research and teaching careers as specialists in intercultural comparative youth studies; they may decide to work as non-formal youth educators/trainers in transnational and intercultural contexts (such as in projects and organisations associated with EU and international action programmes); they may decide to become administrators and service providers in public and private sectors, specialising in education, training and youth affairs.

For further information, contact :
Yael Ohana - Project Coordinator
e-mail: yael.ohana@youthstudies.eu