MA/MS in Youth at Risk (Pedagogical Sciences) (track)

The Master's track Youth at Risk will give you the opportunity to work on preventative youth care in a professional way and teaches you to solve pedagogic issues in various professional fields in an academically sound way. Special attention is paid to situations in which action has to be taken by educators, institutions or authorities to increase young people's opportunities for development and to prevent, identify or solve problems faced by children and young people.

During the programme, you will learn to develop professional recommendations on both policy and practical levels. These recommendations will actually be implemented in practice. This will enable you to ensure that problems such as educational disadvantage, child abuse and juvenile delinquency are identified and dealt with in good time. 

Key topics are:

• individual susceptibility to risk (genes, neurobiology, personality and cognitive ability)
• oppositional, defiant, and antisocial or delinquent behaviour in youths
• psychosocial problems, (social) anxiety and depressive moods
• child abuse, and foster and adoption family constellations
• learning disabilities, truancy, dropout, and school and teacher support factors
• intervention (induced) effects, effective elements, and implementation practices

University of Amsterdam is the only Dutch university that offers this international Master's track.