This programme provides the broad preparation needed for work in education policy. The teaching methods emphasise dealing with applied issues and facilitate your development as a critical thinker through engaging with real life issues. This interdisciplinary programme draws on sociology, political science, and economics to provide you with a rigorous and broad grounding in theory for studying education as a vital component of public policy. This academic programme places joint emphasis on qualitative and quantitative analytical methods, which are reinforced through application to real policy issues under the guidance of experienced tutors. The teaching and assessment methods emphasise working critically with complex arguments. This will prepare you for the normative judgements required by decision makers once the limits of positive analysis have been reached. This programme was developed by the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change to address the increasingly wider range of contemporary challenges in education policy, particularly public policy aims relating to equity, health, social policy and the economy. You will explore how equity in education influences equity in society and vice versa. Educational disadvantage and inequity do not exist in isolation from other forms of disadvantage. Therefore, the programme critically analyses the ability of education policy to influence wider social issues. The programme builds on an international tradition of postgraduate programmes studying education policy and reinterprets this through an integrated focus on equity.