Developing an eye for the diversity in backgrounds and for the difference in treatments and policies these diversities require.
Girls discuss the same problems differently to boys. Immigrants frequently exhibit pathology different to natives. How can this be? And how do you deal with this? This Master’s specialisation focuses on the diversities in youth care. Diversities in the area of ethnicity, religion, gender and social-economic class. You will develop an eye for the diversity in backgrounds and for the difference in treatments and policies these diversities require.
The Master’s specialisation in Diversities in Youth Care challenges you to look differently at care giving and welfare policies. You will gain specific knowledge and develop a sixth sense on the health care needs of young people. You will broaden your vision. How come fewer immigrants accept (certain forms of) help? How can you make homosexuality a subject of discussion in certain cultures? You will look beyond your own values and differentiate between your own ethical beliefs and cultural values and universal beliefs.
Upon graduating you will be an expert in the area of diversities in youth care. Besides plenty of knowledge, skills and – if you want – experience abroad, you will have a dose of cultural relativism. Why do we do it like that? How could we do it differently? You can use this in your work as remedial educationalist or policy maker. After graduating you will be able to work in and outside of the Netherlands at (development) organisations and institutions in the fields of youth care, education, adoption and refugee relief.
See the website http://www.ru.nl/masters/youthcare
- You may pick electives from different Master’s programmes like Religious Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Management Science. These electives fit in well with the programme Diversities in Youth Care. More information can be found on the programme outline page.
- There is plenty of opportunity to go abroad for an elective or an internship. Our network includes a university and relief organisations in Bangladesh, foster homes and orphanages in Romania and the Ukraine and schools in several African countries.
- Radboud University has the only education and research institute in the Netherlands within the field of social sciences which specialises in gender and sexuality: Institute for Gender Studies (IGS). This means you will have access to the latest and most relevant research.
- The programme collaborates with the knowledge centre Sekse en Diversiteit in Medisch Onderwijs (SDMO) (i.e. Gender and Diversity in Medical Education) of Radboudumc. We exchange case studies and give one another guest lectures. You will profit from this exchange of knowledge!
This programme will continually challenge you to adjust your point of view. To look beyond your own values. What is the dividing line between your ethical beliefs and those of the other people? And at what point have universal values been seriously affected?
You are taught to look at it from the point of view of a child growing up in poverty, of a homosexual youth, of someone with a Moroccan father and a Dutch mother, of a child living in a reconstituted family or in a family with strong religious beliefs. You are taught to continually look at issues from someone else’s perspective. In other words, to be flexible when it comes to making judgements and having expectations. Changing your perspective is the very core of this programme.
Upon completing this Master’s specialisation, you will be an expert in youth care concerning diverse backgrounds and personal traits. There is a large need for professionals who know how to deal with homosexual immigrants, with children who don’t speak the local language or youths that have been traumatised by war. Such knowledge and experience are gained in this programme. You will have a flexible view of diverse backgrounds and be critical of your own area of expertise. After graduating you will be a remedial educationalist or policy maker with an expertise that organisations are desperately in need of!
As a professional in Diversities in Youth Care you can work in and outside of the Netherlands in the area of youth care and development. You can work as a policy maker or researcher in organisations as Unicef, adoption agencies, the EU, local governments or research institutions. You can also work as a remedial educationalist for mental health care organisations, refugee centres or with specific groups of children like refugees or LGBT children.
The political and media interest for problems regarding ethnicity, gender and sexuality is huge. How do you deal with it? How do you develop policies? This requires specialist knowledge. Knowledge that goes beyond the borders of a country, a culture and a set of beliefs. The Dutch have a very individualistic approach to happiness while other cultures believe that a happy family unit is more important for one’s own happiness. You will not learn what is wrong and what is right, but how things can be different. This will ensure that the policies you will develop will also be different.
The Master’s specialisation in Diversities in Youth Care will train you to become a specialised caregiver. The programme focuses on social issues in the area of diversity. You can develop a clinical or policymaking approach within youth care and diversities of youth. After graduating you will have knowledge on the role of different backgrounds. Whether it’s about culture, religion or gender, you will be flexible enough to identify various problems and to judge and treat them from the right perspective.
See the website http://www.ru.nl/masters/youthcare
If you are interested in solving societally relevant, complex health issues, then Wageningen is the place to be! In the specialisation Health and Society students become context-sensitive experts in the domains of science and health promotion.
Health and Society studies the social and behavioural aspects of health and health promotion, but also other factors that affect health, for instance the organisation of the food system and the interaction between individuals and the physical environment.
For many centuries, the care for individuals and population health has been the domain of medical science. However, it is widely acknowledged that contemporary health problems are complex and cannot be solved only by hospitals and medical doctors. Many diseases are related to lifestyles, the social and physical environment, access to information and the opportunities for making healthy choices.
The specialisation Health and Society takes a comparative perspective with respect to the empowerment of individuals, communities and populations. In other words, the degree to which people have (financial) means to arrange their lives and the extent to which they can use resources for health protection and health improvement. In that way emphasis is on the social embedding of health and activities of health promotion. The comparative perspective translates into a geographical orientation on differences between developed and developing countries. This geographical orientation is motivated by the fact that issues of social justice, a fundamental principle in health promotion, often relate to inequalities and inequities between regions.
Graduates of this specialisation work for governments, health care institutes or arbo services. Alumni work in national or international organisations, like the Red Cross, Oxfam Novib, or patient associations, research institutes, insurers or health-promoting institutes. Visit future career for the stories and career paths of alumni.
Related programmes:
MSc Management, Economics and Consumer Studies
MSc International Development Studies
MSc Communication, Health and Life Sciences
MSc Development and Rural Innovation
