The Department of Psychosocial Sciences offers the following Master Programs:

Program Name

Psychosocial Studies (Graduate Certificate)

Our Graduate Certificate in Psychosocial Studies introduces you to substantial strands of psychosocial theory: theory that proposes different ways of understanding the interrelationship between the development of subjectivity and identity, and historical and contemporary social and political formations. The focus is on psychoanalysis and social theory.

Psychodynamics of Human Development (Postgraduate Diploma)

Our Postgraduate Diploma in Psychodynamics of Human Development provides an understanding of human development through the theoretical and clinical issues raised by infant observation, through work study seminars and through psychoanalytic and Jungian analytic theories. This includes recent research in child development and contemporary issues in psychodynamic or Jungian analytic theory.

Psychosocial Studies (MA)

Psychosocial studies holds that conventional distinctions found in many areas of sociology and psychology between the ‘psychological’ and the ‘social’ are untenable and that our ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds are empirically and theoretically inseparable.

Education, Power and Social Change (MSC)

These are just some of the questions we consider in our MSc Education, Power and Social Change, where we explore the links between education (all forms of informal and formal learning, across all age ranges, including adult, higher and professional education), and social and political movements, and develop understandings of how ‘education’ as a contested field should be viewed within a globalized and postcolonial context.

Education, Power and Social Change (Postgraduate Diploma)

The Postgraduate Diploma is one of a suite of postgraduate courses looking at the subject of education, power and social change and is ideal if you are interested in studying this subject at postgraduate level for personal or professional reasons, but you don’t want to commit to a full MA. This flexible part-time evening study course allows you to explore your passion for this subject and you can go on to complete our MA, if you wish.

Culture, Diaspora, Ethnicity (MA)

The program explores connections between interlocking colonial histories across the globe and our ordinary, local, everyday life here in contemporary Britain. It focuses on a broad range of subjects such as histories of colonization, systems of slavery, indenture and other forms of colonial labor, the concept of ‘race’ and the invention of ‘the West’; colonial cultures, nationalisms, ‘respectability’ and the invention of ‘whiteness’;  histories of criminalization; histories of anti-racist and anti-fascist resistance; theorizing culture, community, hybridity and creolization; postcolonial belonging, place, urban cultures and diaspora; ‘race’ and ‘beauty’; contemporary racial nationalisms and  religious authoritarian movements; ‘The War on Terror’; ‘whiteness’ and ‘race’, gender, sexuality and desire.

Culture, Diaspora, Ethnicity (Postgraduate Diploma)

The program explores connections between interlocking colonial histories across the globe and our ordinary, local, everyday life here in contemporary Britain. It focuses on a broad range of subjects such as histories of colonization, systems of slavery, indenture and other forms of colonial labor, the concept of ‘race’ and the invention of ‘the West’; colonial cultures, nationalisms, ‘respectability’ and the invention of ‘whiteness’;  histories of criminalization; histories of anti-racist and anti-fascist resistance; theorizing culture, community, hybridity and creolization; postcolonial belonging, place, urban cultures and diaspora; ‘race’ and ‘beauty’; contemporary racial nationalisms and  religious authoritarian movements; ‘The War on Terror’; ‘whiteness’ and ‘race’, gender, sexuality and desire.

Psychoanalytic Studies (MA)

The MA Psychoanalytic Studies is jointly run by the Departments of Psychosocial Studies and History, Classics and Archaeology, which allows you to study the origins of psychoanalysis, its history over its first 120 years of life, its main ideas and their applications, both within and outside the therapeutic context, and in particular how it has been taken up and contested in different social and cultural situations.

About Birkbeck University of London

Birkbeck offers a unique combination of evening study and a matchless central London location, right in the geographic and academic center of the city, giving you exceptional opportunities.

At Birkbeck, you can build your own university experience, with as little or as much support as you need. Birkbeck offers a famously friendly, welcoming environment and we will be with you every step of the way, offering academic support and pastoral guidance, whenever you need it.

Birkbeck is different: our classes are held in the evening, so your days are free – to study, work, volunteer or just do your own thing.

We know the conventional university model isn’t right for everyone. Our evening teaching gives people who care about their future something special: the opportunity to study at a world-class, research-intensive university and progress their life goals at the same time.

With a global reputation for high-quality research and teaching, Birkbeck is part of the prestigious University of London, alongside University College London (UCL), King’s College London (KCL), the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), among others.

At Birkbeck, you can choose as much or as little of the standard university experience as you like. You might work during the day, study in one of Bloomsbury’s world-famous libraries, undertake an internship via Birkbeck Talent, our in-house professional recruitment service – or do something completely different. Many people are drawn to Birkbeck because we support and enable diverse life choices.

The combination of evening study and a city-centre location offer you exceptional opportunities. Our main campus is next to other universities, surrounded by world-famous museums and galleries and in the heart of corporate and governmental London.

With the West End, Soho, Covent Garden and King’s Cross on our doorstep you can take full advantage of London’s world-famous shops, restaurants, bars, theatres and clubs before and after your evening classes. Everything that London has to offer is here for you to enjoy.

In addition, you will have access to the affordable sports facilities, societies, music venues, bars and cafes of Student Central, right next door to our main campus in Bloomsbury, central London.