Masters Degrees in Gender Studies, Netherlands

Reconfigure identity constructions and power differences in our globalized world

In this Research Master's programme, you will learn to critically analyse how gender and ethnicity intersect with other social and historical categories.

In the two-year Research Master in Gender Studies (Research), you will analyse and problematise various structurally embedded conceptions about gender and ethnicity while considering other axes of difference, such as religion, age, and sexuality. Together with the academic staff and fellow students representing different academic fields—ranging from anthropology to literary studies—you will investigate gendered and racialised phenomena in a highly interdisciplinary setting.

Utrecht University’s Research Master in Gender Studies is one of Europe’s most advanced interdisciplinary teaching and research programme in Gender Studies. Our research-focused programme prepares students for postgraduate or PhD work in Gender Studies and related fields.

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In the Utrecht Master in Gender Studies, you'll learn to develop and implement sustainable perspectives in emancipation policies, diversity management, cultural initiatives and political activism.

Emancipation, the recognition of differences, and awareness of intersections of gender with other factors of identity making (class, race, age, sexuality, etc.) are crucial tools in analysing social and cultural relations in today's postcolonial and post-secular societies.

Our Master's programme in Gender Studies provides you with an interdisciplinary understanding of these tools, as well as advanced analytical skills. You will be trained within an internationally diverse cohort of students and academic staff to become a professionally successful 'agent of change'.

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The Water Management programme is open to participants from a range of academic backgrounds, as long as they have a Bachelors degree in an area that contributes to water management. These areas include engineering, economics, law, social sciences and natural sciences.

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The master’s programme in Globalisation & Development Studies is a social science programme that focuses on how globalisation trends affect and interconnect different areas of the globe while marginalising others and how they produce diverse ‘local’ responses. While acknowledging the roles of the state and the market, you will examine the processes of globalisation and development ‘from the ground up’. You will look at how they are experienced in the everyday lives of families, indigenous communities, migrant diasporas, grassroots organisations and NGOs.

This programme builds on 20 years of globalisation and development teaching at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. It has a pronounced global and transnational orientation: from the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, to emancipation and empowerment, hybrid identities, transnational social and political formations, and new possibilities for transforming society. You will develop a sound knowledge basis in the concepts, theories and issues relating to globalisation and development. Using Problem-Based Learning (PBL), which is very well suited for Globalisation and Development Studies, your learning is problem-driven and theory-driven and requires students to be active rather than passive.

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Local food security in a globalising world

Food security exists when everybody has access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food at all times. However, various predictable and unpredictable challenges around the globe, including changes in climate (i.e. rising/falling temperatures, droughts and floods, diseases and pests), market tendencies, insufficient access to food for households, unequal distribution of resources and opportunities and inadequate food distribution channels, prevent the realisation of this idealistic and often oversimplified term.

Despite a growing number of large-scale, high-external input farms and enough food production to feed the world, post-harvest losses result in less optimal yields and (locally) produced foods are often used for other purposes, such as animal feed or biofuel. Consequentially, 795 million1 undernourished people around the globe do not have access to this lost and wasted food.

Ensuring access to food for everyone is the key to ending hunger, which will require improved collaboration between various stakeholders - producer (organisations), the private sector, governments, traders and development organisations. Structures, policies and programmes must be continuously adapted to a variety of external factors, such as the economy, environment and current social structures. Rethinking of informal rules and habits is another essential step in attaining food security, considering even members of the same household are not guaranteed equal access to food. In light of these external factors and challenges, this specialisation presents various interventions needed to combat hunger and ensure food security for everyone.

Competences

At graduation, you will have the ability to:
• define the economic, commercial and marketing needs, constraints and opportunities of those in rural communities who produce for local and regional markets
• analyse food security at a local and global level
• apply tools for diagnosing food security
• analyse the livelihoods of farmers who produce for local and regional markets and understand farmers' coping strategies
• select, explain and design an appropriate development intervention leading to food security
• develop support programmes for farmers, producers and other groups
• mainstream food security within Agricultural and rural development programmes
• define the economic, commercoal and marketing needs, constraints and oppertunities for small-scale producers in rural communities
• formulate and recommend any organisational adjustments that are needed within service-delivery organisations.

Career opportunities

Rural Development and Food Security specialists explore effective responses to mal- and undernourishment, by defining needs, constraints, coping strategies and opportunities for small-scale producers in rural communities. In selecting appropriate context-specific interventions, which reflect understanding of the local context in its wider context, they consider stakeholder relationships and how collaboration could be organised to each stakeholder’s benefit while helping farmers to safeguard their ability to ensure local food security. In the face of globalisation, slow economic growth and political instability, specialists may design and implement responses for (non-)governmental organisations or partners in the private sector, in the form of projects, programmes, market structures or policies.

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Linking sustainable development to social inclusion

While governments around the world have committed themselves to fighting poverty, poverty can only be eradicated once marginalised individuals and groups experience equality, regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity, disabilities or age. That is why discussions on sustainable development and reversing poverty often refer to social inclusion. Development organisations and government agencies can contribute to inclusive transformation processes that improve circumstances for marginalised people and allow them to take part in society and benefit from social services and various political, social, physical and market spaces.

Youth are particularly important drivers of innovation, entrepreneurship and prosperity in developing countries and engaging them in the agricultural sector and keeping them in the rural areas should be a priority. To ensure context-specific inclusive transformation processes, development professionals and organisations need to understand and define marginalised peoples’ needs, interests, constraints and possibilities, as well as understand their roles in decision-making processes at household, economic and societal levels.

The Rural Development, Social nclusion, Gender and Youth specialisation equips students with competences needed to understand and define these contextual factors, reduce inequities and improve social and economic conditions for everyone.

Competences

By the time you graduate, you will have developed the ability to:

• identify opportunities for systemic change and to enhance opportunities and interests of youth, men and women in rural environments
• promote social inclusion and mainstream gender and other socialequity issues in rural development
• recommend changes that will bring about gender equality in organisations
• develop a personal strategy for enhancing empowerment, social inclusion, youth involvement and gender equality in your own profession and organisation.

Career opportunities

Specialists in Rural Development, Social Inclusion, Gender and Youth contribute to inclusive transformation of social processes that improve circumstances for marginalised people to take part in society. Recognising that equal access to markets and social services, influence over decisions affecting one’s life and young people as key drivers of innovation, entrepreneurship and prosperity will increase security over livelihood and improve social economic conditions for everyone, specialists may design interdisciplinary projects to mainstream social inclusion and reduce inequities. As agents for community development, they may be managers, coordinators or consultants in a (non-)governmental organisation or in the private sector.

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Do you ever wonder why mothers are more likely than fathers to work part-time and care for their children? Or why some countries oblige unemployment benefit recipients to follow strict activation requirements while others do not? Maybe you’ve thought about what the expected and real-life benefits and challenges of the decentralization of care are? Or how societies are changing as a result of increasing cultural diversity and social inequality?

If you are interested in studying such issues, this one-year Master's programme is for you. You will develop knowledge about interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives on social policy and interventions, which will help you gain in-depth insight into the methodology and skills needed to research social policy and intervention issues in the domain of health and wellbeing, in particular related to work, care and participation. More specifically, you will look into problems such as:

• Combining work and care
• (Youth) unemployment
• Social and cultural diversity
• Social inequality and exclusion
• Social care and participation

You will also study people's strategies for dealing with social risks, including:

• Life-long learning
• Labour market mobility
• Social entrepreneurship
• Innovative care networks
• Multicultural collaborative efforts
• Cultural diversity and integration
• Neighborhood initiatives

This will be done by combining knowledge from the behavioural and social sciences.

Research-led teaching

The academic staff in our faculty participate in a wide variety of research projects into the problems that are central to this Master's programme, including themes as diverse as:

• Social justice and social wellbeing
• Capabilities for combining work and care
• Youth and parenting in risk societies
• Social innovation in social care
• Social influence in health behaviours
• Social diversity, health and wellbeing
• Interethnic relations, cultural diversity and integration
• Health communication and health promotion

International programme

Our Master’s programme is truly an international programme, in both its teaching and its orientation. Many of the problems focused on in this Master's programme have a strong European or global dimension, such as: ageing and care, migration and ethnic relationships, individualization and solidarity, gender and sexual diversity, and social environments and health. The same goes for the policy and intervention approaches that are used to tackle these issues. You will find that this international perspective is a key feature of the programme. You will learn to take this international perspective in a global teaching environment, with staff and students from the Netherlands, Europe and beyond.

Interdisciplinary

In addition to its international, comparative perspective, the programme is also characterized by its interdisciplinary and multi-method approach. This international, interdisciplinary and multi-method focus also applies to the research you will undertake for your master’s thesis, as well as in the exploration of professional practices. In your research, you will draw on a combination of scientific perspectives from the behavioural and social sciences, in particular psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology. In exploring professional practices, you will also draw on a combination of scientific perspectives, through a focus on social policies, mostly informed by social science, and interventions, mostly grounded in behavioural sciences.

Scientifically grounded intervention research

Programme objective

This Master's programme is intended to enable you to become an academic professional. As a graduate of the Social Policy and Public Health programme, you will be able to study social problems from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. You will also have acquired the professional and academic skills necessary to design, implement, and evaluate social policies and interventions. These skills will allow you to pursue a career as a social scientist, working with government agencies, social service organizations, civil society organizations, or private sector companies.

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