Youth, Society and Sustainable Futures BA
London, Bloomsbury
This unique and future-focused Youth Studies programme addresses issues facing young people aged 15-24. Reflecting the IOE's position as the world-leading faculty of education and social research, this degree aims to be a trailblazer in educational innovation on issues surrounding youth and the factors that may enable or constrain them from having sustainable futures. It considers young people’s relations with the self, others, society, nature and technology and critically examines the UN SDGs and other key developments in sustainability debates, both theoretical and practical.
Study mode
Duration
UK tuition fees (2025/26)
Overseas tuition fees (2025/26)
Programme starts
September 2025Application deadline
29 Jan 2025UCAS course code
Entry requirements
- Grades
- ABB
- Subjects
- No specific subjects. At least two A level subjects should be taken from UCL's list of preferred A level subjects.
- GCSEs
- English Language and Mathematics at grade C or 4.
Contextual offer information
- Grades
- BBB more about contextual offers
- Subjects
- No specific subjects. At least two A level subjects should be taken from UCL's list of preferred A level subjects.
- GCSEs
- English Language and Mathematics at grade C or 4.
- Points
- 34
- Subjects
- A total of 16 points in three higher level subjects, with no higher level score below 5.
Contextual offer
- Points
- 32 more about contextual offers
- Subjects
- A total of 15 points in three higher level subjects, with no higher level score below 5.
UK applicants qualifications
For entry requirements with other UK qualifications accepted by UCL, choose your qualification from the list below:
Equivalent qualification
Pass in Access to HE Diploma with a minimum of 30 credits at Distinction, 12 credits at Merit and 3 credits at Pass, all from Level 3 units.
BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma (QCF) or BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (RQF - teaching from 2016) with Distinction, Distinction, Distinction.
D3,M1,M1 in three Cambridge Pre-U Principal Subjects
ABB at Advanced Highers (or AB at Advanced Higher and BBB at Higher).
T Level Technical Qualification with overall mark of Distinction in one of the following specifcations: Education and Childcare; Health; Healthcare Science; Science;
Not acceptable for entrance to this programme.
Successful completion of the WBQ Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate plus 2 GCE A levels at grades ABB.
International applications
Country-specific information, including details of when UCL representatives are visiting your part of the world, can be obtained from the International Students website.
Access and widening participation
UCL is committed to widening access to higher education. If you are eligible for Access UCL you do not need to do anything in addition to the standard UCAS application. Your application will be automatically flagged when we receive it.Undergraduate Preparatory Certificates
The Undergraduate Preparatory Certificates (UPC) prepare international students for a UCL undergraduate degree who don’t have the qualifications to enter directly. These intensive one-year foundation courses are taught on our central London campus.
Typical UPC students will be high achievers in a 12-year school system which does not meet the standard required for direct entry to UCL.
For more information see: ucl.ac.uk/upc.
English language requirements
The English language level for this programme is: Level 2
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Information about the evidence required, acceptable qualifications and test providers can be found on our English language requirements page.
A variety of English language programmes are offered at the UCL Centre for Languages & International Education.
Course overview
This 3-year BA (Honours) programme is both theory driven, and practice based. It adopts a relational approach to youth studies which considers young people’s relations with the self, others, society, nature and technology. This approach helps us to investigate issues and challenges that young people face and is especially useful for education in sustainability and examining what forces and factors support or hinder young people from having sustainable futures. Students will also benefit from research and expertise within the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education, housed within the same department they are studying in at IOE.
The programme will enable you to examine the lives of young people in diverse ways and help them to act responsibly in the face of challenging real-world problems. It also aims to support you in understanding the notion of ‘futures’ through thinking about the nature and implications of your own choices and by developing analytical skills. You will be able to explain the notions of ‘futures’ using a variety of methods such as text, image and numbers and will also learn how to manage change and maintain ethical integrity. Additionally, you will develop critical, innovative and interdisciplinary perspectives, understand the importance of diverse opinions and develop professional skills as advocates of social action.
The course embraces multi-disciplinarity, ethical, feminist, post-colonial and indigenous approaches to sustainability and encourages students to bring to discussion the experiences of young people from different countries and regions. As a result, it supports you in developing a critical stance towards futures thinking rather than a rhetorical one.
What this course will give you
The Youth, Society and Sustainable Futures BA will offer you opportunities to develop critical and reflective skills and an improved ability to deal with change and uncertainty in a changing world. You will also acquire specialist and generalist employability skills which will prepare you for work in the youth (or related) sector. This includes work in local and international organisations as well as youth services such as local government, youth advocacy, NGOs, youth ministries, youth planning, youth campaigns, education and social policy, human rights, international development, school and FE teaching and with further qualifications, social work, Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), youth rehabilitation services, hospitals. You can also progress to take further professional qualifications related to your chosen field of employment, e.g., social work or teaching, or study at post graduate level within UCL or elsewhere.
Teaching and learning
In each year of your degree you will take a number of individual modules, normally valued at 15 or 30 credits, adding up to a total of 120 credits for the year. Modules are assessed in the academic year in which they are taken. The balance of compulsory and optional modules varies from programme to programme and year to year. A 30-credit module is considered equivalent to 15 credits in the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS).
Modules
Please note that the list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment and module content and availability is subject to change. Modules that are in use for the current academic year are linked for further information. Where no link is present, further information is not yet available.
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In this programme, you will have opportunities to explore practice, analyse research, and review policy in the Youth Studies field at individual, societal and global levels, especially in relation to sustainability. You will develop understanding about the various factors that affect young people and help or hinder them from living sustainable lives and having sustainable futures.
The first year of your studies explores the understandings that underpin the programme. This year focuses on the significance of theory, international definitions and perspectives of youth. The second year deepens your knowledge by focusing on research and practice. It also develops employability skills within the Youth related sector, with the possibility of an industrial placement. The third and final year supports your understanding of leadership and professionalisation and includes a research project within Youth Studies.
Every year, you will critically examine tensions and knowledge of global and local interpretations of youth. You will also undertake practice-based modules to engage with professional values and develop leadership skills, including problem-solving, teamwork and decision-making.
Year 1 Compulsory Modules
Introduction to Youth Studies
This module introduces students to the varied and disputed definitions of youth, through a biological, historical and legal lens and as a socio-cultural construct. It also examines international frameworks such as the UN Youth Strategy, and other conventions and initiatives related to youth and the challenges young people face at home and globally including issues pertaining to sustainability in the Anthropocene. Key programme ethical foundations and issues of inclusivity, decolonisation, feminist approaches and social and intergenerational justice are explored within this module.
Sociological Approaches to Youth Studies
This module considers young people’s agency, social relations and the societal structures and pressures they face. It focuses on young people’s relations with others including family and peers, adolescence in schools, the young carer, friendships and intimate relationships, and the impact of social media on social relations. It also examines young people’s relations with society: determinants of inequality, educational innovation and change in provision (e.g., during and post COVID-19 and impacts of AI on education and jobs), access to health, education, housing and decent employment, advocacy and association for change, youth voice, equality, diversity and discrimination especially gender equality, political exclusion and marginalisation and considering social relations within legacies of power such as colonialism and empire.
Young People and Technology
This module considers young people’s relations with technology including issues related to Generation AI, impacts on future education and work, tensions between digital mastery/abuse and physical and mental wellbeing, technology and social isolation/connection, gaming, youth relations with technology and consumerism, technology as privilege or an equaliser, etc. The module expands the debate about the positive and negative impacts of technology on young people’s lives through an angle of social justice and youth/south divide.
Youth and Sustainable Futures
This module explores young people’s relations with nature and the environment and their right to more sustainable futures at times of rapid environmental change through three approaches, a theoretical perspective the lived perspective and an action- based perspective and is taught over two terms. In term one, it explores the theoretical field in relation to sustainability, examining international frameworks and contested notions about sustainability and sustainable development, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Education for Sustainable development (ESD). The module also considers emerging eco-pedagogical, non-anthropocentric, and indigenous approaches to sustainability and locates these as well as climate justice debates within wider political and economic discourses in relation to Colonialism and hegemonic notions. The module also considers the lived perspective of young people in relation to sustainability by considering issues such as urbanisation and Nature Deficit Syndrome, biodiversity, habitat loss and species extinction, climate anxiety, climate justice and intergenerational justice, interaction between young people and nature including through leisure activities and green/wild spaces, and the future of urban vs rural young livelihoods in relation to sustainable futures. The module employs and promotes pedagogies of hope and love and transformative action in the face of environmental challenges.
In term two, the module examines young people as actors of change and considers their emerging interest and activism in issues related to the environment and sustainability both within their local communities and wider new social movements (e.g., extinction revolution and climate strikes). It will utilise guest speakers and real-world case studies alongside research
Psychological Approaches to Youth Studies
This module considers young people’s relations with the self and the psychological factors which may help youth or hinder them from living sustainable and flourishing lives. Topics covered include psychological theories, especially in relation to adolescents and other youth, including positive psychology development and practical interventions for mental health and wellbeing in a variety of settings. Issues of identity, self-image, self-worth and self-esteem including through media/social media and beauty/fashion industries are explored and the psychological and developmental issues and pressures related to gender and sexuality are considered. The module explores the psychological stresses and traumas experienced by young migrants and young refugees and factors contributing to a more resilient young self. It also examines factors that can promote young people’s self-actualisation, agency and psychological wellbeing.
Year 2 Compulsory Modules
Youth and Consumerism
This module considers the global ideological and economic systems that shape young people’s behaviours as consumers and new and emerging trends in young people’s consumptive behaviours in relations to sustainability. The module considers the effect of new social movements on young people’s consumption while considering the influence of the beauty and fashion industry, social media and young YouTube influencers on youth as a consumer category. The module covers issues about sustainable design and sustainability in the age of fast fashion and the attention to sustainable practices (packaging, labelling, recycling, etc.) as well as young people’s activism in relation to consumption and its effects on sustainable futures.
Working with Young People
This module prepares students for working with young people through introducing students to work in youth settings and the professional and ethical principles and practices required for performing these jobs effectively, ethically, safely and sustainably. There is a focus on knowledge, skills, and attitude development as well as understanding the codes of practice and standards required for work in a variety of youth settings. This is a pre-requisite module for the placement module.
Young People and Determinants of Health
This module covers the various determinants of health, with a focus on young people, and demonstrates how healthy lives go hand in hand with a sustainable lifestyle for a healthy planet. It reflects the positive mental and physical benefits of being in nature and the impacts of our health and lifestyle choices on nature and the environment. In particular, the module considers critically varied definitions of health, and explores WHO determinants of health as factors that may help or hinder young people from living healthy lives, and the relationship between having healthy and sustainable lifestyles. Young people’s mental health, physical health concerns such as malnutrition including obesity, sedentary lifestyles, substance misuse and addictions, sexual health and sexuality, and relationships between health and the environment are amongst key areas critically examined.
Youth and the Green Economy
This module introduces young people to the principles underlying the green economy (and the blue economy) as a sustainable employment sector for youth and examines careers in the “green and clean sector”. It covers aspects of youth employment, entrepreneurship and investment in these sectors and why these are important for securing current and future youth employment while reducing environmental harm and supporting more flourishing and sustainable lives. The module also considers how the green and caring sectors can intersect to provide healthier and more sustainable lives while reducing youth poverty.
Researching with Young People
This module examines issues and practices pertaining to researching and doing research with young people as participants and partners including ethics, protection, vulnerability, power relations, modes of partnership, etc. It introduces students to what is meant by research, what are the aims of social research and what are research paradigms. It considers issues of methodology and methods, data collection and analysis, and best practices in writing and presenting research.
Year 3 Compulsory Modules
Youth Leadership and Participation
This module considers issues of youth participation and leadership in society and the international and national frameworks supporting such endeavours. It also examines how economic, political and cultural factors can affect youth representation, participation and leadership, especially in relation to gender, and considers critically the rise of young people’s voice through young advocates and activists such as Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg and social movements.
Youth, Education Arenas and Transition
This module considers youth and their education settings, issues of transitions between phases and stages, and the adaptations and mitigations that may support successful transition. The module considers issues arising from national examinations, support for young NEETS, support for moving to college and university and the transition to work. Relevant policies and practices are examined to support young people at crucial stages of their life trajectories.
Dissertation module
The dissertation is a research inquiry module which develops students’ academic research and communication skills and enacts the learning acquired in the “researching with young people module”. This module is based on research undertaken by students, including within their own placements to produce a 6000words dissertation. Students are encouraged to present their work in a format suitable for publishing.
Strongly recommended Optional Module:
Year 2 Placement:
This is an industrial placement module undertaken off site where students choose their own youth setting placement supported by information from tutors and admin staff. This module allows students to develop industrial links, employability skills and practical work experience at a youth setting of their own choosing. Students will apply previous learning acquired in the “working with young people” module into a work setting while developing further their practical communication skills. A variety of youth settings are included in the placement such as youth charities, local and international NGOs, youth leisure schemes, forest schools, etc. The placement module is optional but strongly recommended and every student who wants a placement will be supported to get one through provision of lists of suitable placements with contact details.
Compulsory modules
Optional modules
Compulsory modules
Optional modules
Compulsory modules
Your learning
The programme will involve lectures, seminars, visits, guest speakers, group projects, production of artefacts, creative problem-solving activities based on real-world scenarios, placements and industry links and interdisciplinary practices.
No compulsory fieldwork although students may go on self-directed or other planned visits.
Typical contact hours vary between 8-12 hours a week, depending on the year of study and module choice. They include lectures, seminars, practice-based activities and e-learning activities. You will also display a level of independent study (25-30 hours per week), for example, by engaging with key topics and required readings in preparation for the discussions promoted in the programme.
Assessment
Coursework, including multi-modal presentations, technical reports, case studies, posters, podcasts, blogs, films, project proposals with logframe, group work and essays, a placement report and a dissertation.
Accessibility
Details of the accessibility of UCL buildings can be obtained from AccessAble. Further information can also be obtained from the UCL Student Support and Wellbeing Services team.
The foundation of your career
As this is a new degree for 2025 there is no graduate destination data to draw on from previous years. However, the programme has been designed to equip you with skills to help prepare you for careers in areas such as:
- Local and international youth organisations
- Other relevant NGOs
- Youth state services (youth advocacy, youth ministries, youth planning, education and social policy, international development, youth campaigns, security agencies)
- Youth settings (youth clubs, leisure facilities, museums, sustainability projects, green economy projects, social enterprise)
- Youth leadership and participation initiatives
- Youth political representation initiatives
- Education sector, including schools and FE
And with additional qualifications:
- youth social work
- Children and Adolescents Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
- Youth rehabilitation services
- Hospitals
Graduates may also wish to proceed to graduate study at UCL and elsewhere.
Employability
The programme is cross-disciplinary, including elements of sociology, psychology, criminology, environmental education, health and philosophy. This will enable and challenge you to critically engage with the complexities of knowledge. The course will also improve your employability through embedded employability skills and three “soft” pathways that students may curate through the choice of available optional modules or just follow a general pathway determined by their own free choice of options. The three soft pathways include:
- Pathway 1: Working in Youth Communication and Leisure Settings
- Pathway 2: Working in International Organisations and other NGOs
- Pathway 3: Working in state funded youth services
Students will be able to access a variety of opportunities to consider how to have more sustainable futures through visits, invited speakers and projects based on real life problems.
Students will become data empowered by considering the impact of new technologies and social media on young people and through data handling during study.
This programme addresses the UCL pillars of employability by providing students with specific work-associated knowledge and employability skills needed for a projected growth in youth related services, the social care trajectory and the “green and clean” youth related sector. It does this through exposure to modules such as Youth and the Green Economy and Youth and Consumerism for example. It also uses the "Working with Young People" and Placement modules to prepare students for work in youth voluntary and faith related organisations, youth state supported services or youth policy and planning organisations.
Fees and funding
Fees for this course
Fee description | Full-time |
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Tuition fees (2025/26) | £9,250 |
Tuition fees (2025/26) | £33,000 |
The fees indicated are for undergraduate entry in the 2024/25 academic year. The UK fees shown are for the first year of the programme at UCL only. Fees for future years may be subject to an inflationary increase. The Overseas fees shown are the fees that will be charged to 2024/25 entrants for each year of study on the programme, unless otherwise indicated below.
Full details of UCL's tuition fees, tuition fee policy and potential increases to fees can be found on the UCL Students website.
Additional costs
There will be a small amount of additional costs to students incurred through the following:
Placement module:
- Travel costs to cover public transport travel fees to their chosen placement. The exact cost of such travel will depend on the location, prevailing exchange rates, and the price of travel. It is estimated that students would need to contribute about £100-£200.
- DBS certificate cost if students choose a placement that requires DBS. The exact cost will depend on the placement setting and type of certificate required and varies between £32-£52.
Other visits:
Students may go on day visits in years 1 and 2. The exact cost of each visit will depend on the location, prevailing exchange rates, and the price of travel. It is estimated that students would need to contribute about £20.
A guide including rough estimates for these and other living expenses is included on the UCL Fees and funding pages. If you are concerned by potential additional costs for books, equipment, etc., please get in touch with the relevant departmental contact (details given on this page).
The department might be able to support some students with DBS costs on a case by case basis through a hardship grant.
Funding your studies
Various funding options are available, including student loans, scholarships and bursaries. UK students whose household income falls below a certain level may also be eligible for a non-repayable bursary or for certain scholarships. Please see the Fees and funding pages for more details.
Scholarships
The Scholarships and Funding website lists scholarships and funding schemes available to UCL students. These may be open to all students, or restricted to specific nationalities, regions or academic department.
Next steps
Your application
We are seeking students who are motivated, proactive, curious and creative. You should also have an interest in young people's various concerns and a passion for social justice and sustainability. You must be willing to work hard, both alone and as part of a team, and challenge yourself to become an independent learner who is ready to make a positive difference to society during your years of study and in the future.
How to apply
Application for admission should be made through UCAS (the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service). Applicants currently at school or college will be provided with advice on the process; however, applicants who have left school or who are based outside the United Kingdom may obtain information directly from UCAS.
Selection
For further information on UCL's selection process see: How we assess your application.
Got questions? Get in touch
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