Study with us
Members of the Centre for Child, Adolescent & Family Research are actively involved in both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching relating to their areas of expertise. If you would like to study with us, please find more information below:
Undergraduate Study
We are part of the Department of Psychology, and all undergraduate study is run directly within the main department. Please see Study Overview | Department of Psychology.
If you're a 6th form student interested in Psychology then you may be interested in the Department of Psychology's A-Z, which illustrates the great variety of things which the department and other psychologists do.
Postgraduate Study
The Centre welcomes applications from well qualified students wishing to undertake PhD research within the Centre's areas of expertise. Graduate students work in the stimulating research environment of the Centre under the direction of their supervisor. For initial enquiries, please see the staff profiles for Professor Pasco Fearon and Professor Claire Hughes. You can contact them direct, if your proposed research aligns with their interests.
General details of the University's PhD programme and procedures for application can be found on the Department of Psychology - Prospective Postgraduates page.
Examples of current postgraduate projects
Sociocultural and environmental influence on self and social processing and mental health in adolescence in the UK and Spain
~ Blanca Piera Pi-Sunyer
In a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and the University of the Basque Country, this research investiagtes how social and environmental resources and stressors are related to social inequalities in emotional difficulties in adolescents (roughly 10 to 24 years). For example, I am interested in how the relationships with friends and peers (e.g., friendship quality, trust and number of friends) may be related to favourable self-views. This could be important to reduce the risk of socioemotional difficulties in at risk adolescents, particularly girls and adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds.
In addition, I am also interested in how neighbourhood stressors (e.g. population density and deprivation) and resources (e.g. residential greenness and green space) can be related to social and psychological wellbeing in young people, including enabling social support for families and peers. The findings of these projects could be applied to schools and institutions in efforts to foster social support and wellbeing for all young people, such that living environments are safe-by-design.
Being Alone - Social Disconnection in Adolescence
~ Emily Towner
Social isolation and disconnection are increasingly prevalent challenges for adolescents today. My thesis research investigates the psychological impacts of social isolation during adolescence, a sensitive period for social and emotional development. Using an experimental approach, I induced feelings of loneliness in adolescents using short-term social isolation, with and without access to virtual social interactions.
My work examines how brief periods of isolation influence psychological state, threat learning and reward processing. Further, I explore the functional and structural neural predictors of sensitivity to isolation. My research aims to understand the complex mechanisms through which social disconnection might influence adolescents' mental health and whether or not virtual social interactions ameliorate or exacerbate the effects of isolation.
Ultimately, this research seeks to contribute to our understanding of adolescent development, with potential implications for mental health interventions and support strategies for young people experiencing social isolation.
Language Patterns and Theory of Mind Development: A Cross-Cultural Study of UK and Chinese Children
~ Candidate: Tianyi Pei; Supervisor: Professor Claire Hughes
Drawing on data from the large-scale Ready or Not study led by Professor Claire Hughes, this research examines the potential associations between parental mind-mindedness (MM) in non-interactional contexts, mental state talk (MST) in interactional settings, and Chinese children’s Theory of Mind (ToM). Specifically, it investigates how representational mind-mindedness (RMM) is expressed through observable verbal behaviours during parent-child interactions, with a particular focus on MST use in goal-directed tasks.
Taking a cross-cultural perspective, this study also explores differences in parental MST between UK and Chinese parent-child dyads. Beyond measuring MST frequency, it examines how mental state terms are embedded in discourse (e.g., whether they more often appear in causal explanations or open-ended questions) and whether cross-cultural variations in MST contribute to differences in children’s ToM development. By elucidating both individual and cross-cultural differences in ToM development among Chinese and British children, this research highlights the role of cultural context in shaping children’s understanding of mental states.