The Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University is offering a new PhD program in Child and Youth Studies. Our proposed program fits closely with the university’s Strategic Mandate of research in transdisciplinarity and competes globally as one of the primary destinations for study in the growing field of Child and Youth Studies. The focus of our Doctoral program is to provide advanced multi- and transdisciplinary training and research related to the study of children and youth in local, regional, and global contexts.

The program consists of either a traditional four-year PhD program that requires a MA/MSc degree in a related field or else an accelerated program whereby a student enters our MA program, completes a year of study, and then directly enters the Doctoral program without completing their MA thesis. This latter path is intended for either for individuals who lack an appropriate MA degree to apply directly for the PhD program and/or for exceptional applied students who are not likely to need the length of time that is usually required to develop a traditional academic publication portfolio. The course structure of the program includes advanced quantitative or qualitative methods courses, advanced topics courses from several disciplines, a transdisciplinary proseminar, and a flexible comprehensive structure that includes two of: traditional testing; teaching; research project; community/work placement.

Our flexible program content is designed to reflect our department’s multidisciplinary roots while meeting the needs of students from different disciplines and career trajectories. The program is specifically aimed at successfully developing the marketability of our graduates in both academic and non-academic job markets including: education, clinical counselling, NGO consultation, and legal advocacy.