Information on applying to the MA in Children's Literature

Why Reading? Why the MA in Children's Literature?
MA and PhD funding and Careers after the MA
How to apply

Why Reading? Why the MA in Children's Literature?

This MA is the oldest accredited degree in this field in Britain (founded in 1984), and its staff are all world-known, special experts in children's literature and childhood who publish extensively internationally (for details of our unique publications, please see our staff pages).

The MA is part of the 'Centre for International Research in Childhood: Literature, Culture, Media' (CIRCL), which runs our world-famous and cutting-edge research on children's literature, culture, and media in the English Department.

The extremely popular and well-known taught MA course (1 year full-time, 2 years part-time) involves the study of a wide range of Children's Literature, and a wide range of issues around Children's Literature, childhood, history, culture, and media.

On the MA course, you will find yourself engaged in lively seminar discussions about anything from different cultural and historical ideas about children and reading and writing, the roles of popular fiction, film, television, and new multi-media, to the influence of ancient myth and folktale. If you would like to read an overview article on Children's Literature and its issues by Dr Karin Lesnik-Oberstein, the Director of the MA, then you can do so on the online Literary Encyclopedia.

Your seminar leaders will guide you in your reading and thinking by giving you access to their own cutting-edge research on, for instance, childhood and changing ideas of the family (Dr Karin Lesnik-Oberstein), children and animals in fiction (Dr Sue Walsh), childhood and ideas of pedagogy (Dr Neil Cocks), and childhood and popular fiction and multi-media (all staff).

For more detailed information on how the MA in Children's Literature course itself actually works, and on reading lists for the degree, please go to the CIRCL web-pages on Reading Lists and on the MA and CIRCL staff. For a list of past MA dissertations see the MA dissertations page.

The MA teaching team will also offer you close personal support, and the MA staff are known for their accessibility, friendliness and supportiveness.

Students from all over the world attend the MA, and successfully bring their new knowledge back to their home countries for use in their further careers or research there, as well as making friends world-wide who share their interests in this fascinating field: for example, see our web-page on the activities of our members at CIRCL-Japan.

For what past and present MA students say about their experience on the MA, see the student page.

MA and PhD funding and Careers after the MA

We offer both MA and PhD applicants extensive advice on applying for funding.

For information on fees, please go to the University web-site post-graduate fees page.

The excellence of the MA in Children's Literature is confirmed by the success of MA applicants in gaining funding support, either from the British government (Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)), or from foreign governments or private funding sources.

Many of our students go on to do PhD research very successfully, either at CIRCL itself or at other Universities. If you would like to see what some of the CIRCL PhD students have done and do, please go to the CIRCL PhD web-page.

Our PhD students have been successful also in gaining funding, either from the University of Reading (University of Reading Full Studentships; Faculty Bursaries, and Graduate School of Arts and Humanities Full Studentships), or from the British government (Overseas Research Student (ORS) funding; Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Funding or from foreign governments or universities.

MA students have gone on, or returned, to careers in teaching, (children's) publishing, librarianship, advertising, business, and marketing. Many students have let us know that the MA has importantly enriched their capacity to understand situations in their work, and to communicate better about them, and has therefore been of benefit in that way, even when they were not working in areas to do specifically with children's literature.

For students' reflections on the role of the MA in their further careers, see the careers page.

How to apply

Please include with your application form two references and two essays you wrote during your previous University degree (not on children's literature though), and a statement of motivation (a page or so long) explaining why you are interested in attending the MA. We ask for the essays and the statement of motivation so we can make as sure as possible that this degree is the right degree for you.

For home students wishing to apply for AHRC funding to attend the MA, please note that in 2006-7, the title of the MA officially became an 'MA (Research)', defined in England as 'a [taught] Master's course that focuses on advanced study and research training explicitly intended to provide a foundation for further research at doctoral level.' (Please note this does NOT mean you have to go on to do a PhD! Most MA students do not, in fact. It just means that this MA has been endorsed as able to prepare for that level of further study.)

Application forms can be downloaded from on-line, or requested from:

The Secretary for Postgraduate Courses, School of English and American Literature.
E-mail: j.f.cox@reading.ac.uk [photo post-graduate secretary]
Tel. No. +44-(0)118 378 8362
Fax No. +44-(0)118 378 6561

Please also see the web-page on the MA in Children's Literature on the site of the Department of English at The University of Reading.

Good luck with your application!