Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies

Entry requirements

Applicants for this course should have achieved a UK 2:1 Honours Degree.

Months of entry

October

Course content

The MPhil in Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies provides rigorous advanced training in the multi-disciplinary study of gender. The course is designed for those students who wish to prepare for PhD or further research and also for those who want to enhance their understanding of "gender" by undertaking the MPhil only.

The primary objective of the course is to introduce students from a wide variety of academic, business and policy backgrounds to the traditions, methods and front-line research that shape an advanced gender analysis of human society. Up to 25 different departments within the University of Cambridge come together on this course to address a range of topics such as:

• Conflict
• Globalisation
• Labour Market inequality
• Public Policy
• Bio-medical advances
• Experimental Psychology
• Human Rights and Justice
• Literature and the Arts
• Culture and Antiquity

A key theme of the MPhil programme is 'intersectional' approaches to gender inequality. Systems of gender inequality cannot be properly understood, analysed or addressed without taking into consideration specific histories of the ways in which issues of sexuality, race, colonialism, class, disability and more inflect gender analysis.

Graduates from this MPhil should emerge as highly desirable candidates for a wide range of careers including those specialising in government, policy, business, NGO, journalistic and academic careers. Former students have gone on to work with the Centres for Migration and Labour Solutions, The European Commission, for Policy Research in India, with the UN Development Programme and UN Women.

The course aims to provide students with the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to:

• use a range of methods for gathering, analysing and interpreting research material;
• apply normative theories to substantive research topics;
• frame research questions, to construct appropriate research designs, and develop a thorough grasp of a wide range of methodological approaches;
• interpret complex research publications effectively;
• independently manage primary research, including data management and the writing up of research as well as understanding codes of research practice and research ethics; and
• present research and also to make use of constructive criticism.