Education MA
- Education and teaching
- Postgraduate
Are you looking to advance your practice in education, health, social work or social care?
This flexible MA develops ethical, research-minded practice, responsive to contemporary challenges, research and policy-shaping interprofessional work, including equity, social justice and sustainability.
Advance your practice and take on new challenges
Through a mix of campus days and online teaching sessions, you’ll develop skills as a facilitator, mediator and leader of research-engaged practice.
The MA Education is aimed for those working in education, health, social work and social care. It provides flexible learning opportunities to develop research minded and ethical practice aligned to your current role and emerging ambitions.
The course has been designed in close consultation with employers, practitioners and education experts across the relevant sectors. This ensures the curriculum is conceptually robust, professionally relevant and responsive to contemporary challenges, research developments and policy shifts shaping interprofessional practice locally, nationally and globally, including those relating to equity, social justice and sustainability.
This course recognises the complexity of educational work in diverse and changing contexts. Our expertise in supporting research‑engaged professionals at master’s level ensures a rigorous, supportive and intellectually challenging learning experience.
Studying for the MA Education will advance your professional practice, research literacy and critical thinking across a range of educational, professional and organisational contexts. The learning from this masters allows graduates to progress their career across a range of roles within interprofessional settings.
You will engage with experts and specialists across disciplines to critically examine contemporary research, theory and policy. Studying alongside professionals from varied sectors creates a rich learning environment, fostering dialogue, reflexivity and the development of a supportive professional community, while extending your networks across education, health and social care.
Throughout the course, you will deepen your understanding of research methods, enabling you to interrogate evidence, question assumptions and respond ethically to complex challenges in your practice. You will critically explore your professional role, identity and agency within wider organisational, social and political contexts, including interprofessional working and system‑level change. You will explore positionality, identity and power in professional practice.
You will engage in debates that consider how race, class, gender, disability and language shape professional perspectives. The course will adopt a critical focus on equity, justice and sustainability, including the politics of “objectivity” and privilege, environmental responsibility and global inequality within professional practice.
The MA Education supports you to become a research‑informed, ethically grounded and socially responsible practitioner, examining the relationships between professional knowledge, lived experience, organisational priorities and evidence‑based practice. You will be encouraged to challenge deficit narratives and to engage critically with issues of power, access, inclusion and justice in professional practice.
As part of the Professional Practice Study, you will design and undertake an independent research enquiry focused on an issue at the forefront of your practice. This enables you to investigate questions that matter to you, and the people you work with and support, while developing a research-minded approach to creative problem solving.
Why choose this course
While you study, you’ll benefit from top quality teaching at Kingston University. Not only are we ranked Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework, we also have 100 years’ experience of educating educators.
Throughout the course, you’ll be taught by experienced professionals at our Kingston Hill campus. Facilities include the Nightingale Centre, a modern library with long opening hours, a cafe and zoned study areas.
You’ll also have access to specialist education books, journals and online resources, plenty of computers and our innovative virtual learning environment, Canvas.
Alongside your campus study days, you’ll gain a new perspective from keynote events and lectures throughout your studies through Kingston’s Department of Education. You’ll receive regular information about seminars, workshops and lectures by staff and postgraduate students. Activities include BERA, Erasmus project events, the European Conference for Educational Research and London-based educator seminar programmes.
Many of our staff in the Department of Education are research-active. This ensures they are in touch with the latest thinking and bring best practice to your studies. Education research at Kingston includes work on subject pedagogy, curriculum design, planning, assessment, safeguarding, SEND and inclusive practice, Early Years, educational technologies, supporting more able learners, educational inequalities, policy and the history of education.
Course content
Please note that this is an indicative list of modules and is not intended as a definitive list. Those listed here may also be a mixture of core and optional modules.
Year 1
Core modules
Year 2
Core modules
Career opportunities
When you complete this course, you’ll have the advanced learning, research and practice skills you need to progress in a range of educational settings. You’ll possess the knowledge, confidence and attributes to succeed as a facilitator, co-ordinator, mediator or leader of research-engaged professional practice. The course could even lead to collaborative learning networks or doctoral studies in Education.
Teaching and assessment
The MA Education programme structure consists of five modules with a total of 180 credits at level 7 that are typically completed over a period of two years part-time. This course uses a range of teaching and assessment methods which have been designed to support your learning and achievement of the learning outcomes.
Learning experiences include campus study days, lectures, seminars, workshops and tutorials, which are supported by online resources for preparatory and consolidating guidance and tasks.
Fees and funding
Additional course costs
Some courses may require additional costs beyond tuition fees. When planning your studies, you’ll want to consider tuition fees, living costs, and any extra costs that might relate to your area of study.
Your tuition fees include costs for teaching, assessment and university facilities. So your access to libraries, shared IT resources and various student support services are all covered. Accommodation and general living expenses are not covered by these fees.
Where applicable, additional expenses for your course may include:
Fees for future course years
Part time
If you start your second year straight after Year 1, you will pay the same fee for both years.
If you take a break before starting your second year, or if you repeat modules from Year 1 in Year 2, the fee for your second year may increase.
Funding support for postgraduate students
If you are a UK student living in England and under 60, you can apply for a loan to study for a postgraduate degree. Find out more through the government's website.
Scholarships and bursaries
Interested in studying Education MA at Kingston? The following funding support is available:
How to apply
Before you apply
Please read the entry criteria carefully to make sure you meet all requirements before applying.
How to apply online
Use the course selector drop-down at the top of this page to choose your preferred course, start date and mode, then click 'Apply now'. You will be taken to our Online Student Information System (OSIS) where you will complete your application.
If you’re starting a new application, you’ll need to select ‘new user’ and set up a username and password. This will allow you to save and return to your application.
Please note: If you’re from a country outside the EU or EEA that’s classified as overseas fee-paying, you won’t be eligible to apply for a part-time course because of visa regulations in the UK. For information about exceptions, please visit the UKCISA website or email our CAS and Visa Compliance team.
Application deadlines
We encourage you to apply as soon as possible. Applications will close when the course is full.
After you apply
If the admissions tutor needs more information or wants to invite you for an interview, we will be in touch directly.
Course changes and regulations
The information on this page reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. To improve your student experience and the quality of your degree, we may review and change the material information of this course. Find out more about course changes
Programme Specifications for the course are published ahead of each academic year.
Regulations governing this course can be found on our website.
