London, United Kingdom

Youth and Globalisation

This module provides an introduction to youth studies, with a particular focus on critically exploring the association between youth and the globalising world. This module considers a broad body of interdisciplinary scholarships such as history, education, politics, and the environment. Students will also critically discuss the increasing use of social media by youth movements in creating changes in society and the notion of young people as the agents of change.

Students will be exposed to these topics through series of lectures, seminar sessions and study trips to three institutions; 1) The British Museum, 2) The Indonesian Embassy in London and 3) the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation office. In addition, students are also expected to do their own independent studies.This module will bring in perspectives from various parts of the world through diverse reading materials. The reading materials provide a fundamental understanding of youth studies (Cieslik and Simpson, 2013), global situation of young people (UN, 2003), and engage critically in the discussion of youth as an agent of change (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2015; Kwon, 2013). In some topics, there will be at least one country used as a context reference; Hong Kong context (Chui, 2013) will be used as an example for youth and globalisation topic, Chilean (Valenzuela et al., 2012) and Sri Lankan (Ivarsson, 2018) contexts will be used for youth and social media topic, Georgian and Ukrainian contexts (Beacháin and Polese, 2010) will be used for youth and politics topic, Kenyan context (Ojiambo, 2015) will be used for youth and education topic, and Canadian context (Hood et al., 2011) will be used for youth and environment topic.

Course leader

Dorothy Ferary Panjaitan

Target group

This is a level one module (equivalent to first year undergraduate). No prior subject knowledge is required to study this module but students are expected to have a keen interest in the subject area.

Course aim

Upon successful completion of this module, students will:

Have demonstrated knowledge and understanding of the history of youth studies
Be familiar with some of the issues which intersect with youth in a global context
Be able to critically look at some of the factors that further support the notion of youth as an agent of change
Have critically reflected upon their understanding and experience on what it means to be a young person in a globalising world
Have demonstrated skills in group working, giving a presentation, and writing an academic essay

Credits info

7.5 EC
7.5 ECTS, 4 US, 15 UCL

Fee info

GBP 2585: Students who study in both sessions (6 weeks) will benefit from a built-in tuition fee discount.