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MSc programmes

LSE Gender has been a dream journey of personal and academic growth. The intersectional and caring approach of the department welcomed us and made us feel supported throughout the year.

The Department of Gender Studies has challenged the way I look at the world and inspired me to destabilise accepted ideas and develop a more critical eye. I have been introduced to a wealth of critical theories and literature and have learnt more in the last 2 terms than ever before.

The Department of Gender Studies serves as a focus for gender research across the LSE, and works to promote a close relationship between policy makers and the academy. LSE Gender provides a vibrant research culture with resident Research Fellows, visiting scholars, public lectures and conferences, and a regular programme of research seminars.

LSE Gender currently runs eight master's programmes with around 150 students each year from different academic backgrounds and from a wide range of countries. LSE Gender has an extensive range of over 20 courses attracting students from a variety of other LSE departments.  

2024/25 - Prospective Students

Our Teaching

Over the years, faculty and doctoral researchers at the Department have been nominated and awarded repeatedly for the following LSESU teaching awards:

  • Inclusive Education
  • Class Teacher
  • Sharing Subject Knowledge
  • Excellent Feedback and Communication
  • Research Guidance and Support
  • Inspirational Teaching
  • Best Teacher

The Department of Gender Studies has been recognized by the LSE Excellence in Education Awards in 2017, 2018 & 2022, the LSESU Teaching Excellence Award in 2017, 2018 & 2023 and the LSESU Departmental Excellence Award in 2016 & 2022.

MSc programmes

MSc Gender

We train MSc Gender students in how to treat gender as an object of study, as an analytic approach or perspective and as a way of thinking across disciplinary boundaries.

MSc Gender (Research)

In many ways similar to MSc Gender, this degree programme further emphasises research design, epistemology, methodology and research methods, introducing students to the significance of gender in producing as well as consuming knowledge.

MSc Gender (Rights and Human Rights)

This research-led programme provides students with an in-depth knowledge of the epistemological, conceptual, and empirical contexts in which gender and human rights operate and circulate around the globe.

MSc Gender (Sexuality)

This interdisciplinary degree programme foregrounds the relevance of theory to transnational issues of sexual activism and legal frames.

MSc Gender, Development and Globalisation

This programme draws on a wide range of perspectives and considers diverse analytical tools for the analysis of development and globalisation from a uniquely gendered perspective.

MSc Gender, Media and Culture

In this programme, students are encouraged to interrogate a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to the gendered analysis of contemporary media and culture.


MSc Gender, Peace and Security

This unique, multi-disciplinary programme is concerned with the ways in which women and gender are understood in relation to, and affected by, regional, national and global peace and security processes in conflict and post-conflict settings.

MSc Gender, Policy and Inequalities

The MSc Gender, Policy and Inequalities provides advanced study in the application of gender theory to social policy, planning and practice with an interdisciplinary approach.

MSc Social Research Methods (Gender)

This programme stream is run by the Department of Methodology but is the entry point to our ESRC 1+3 programme - please see our PhD page for further information if you are interested in this route.

Our Courses

GI402 Gender, Knowledge and Research Practice

This course introduces students to the central issues at stake in designing and carrying out gender research at graduate and postgraduate level and beyond.

GI403 Gender and Media Representation

This course aims to enable students to think critically about representations of gender in a range of different media.

GI409 Gender, Globalisation and Development: An Introduction

This course will provide students with a knowledge of two key interconnected and intersecting literatures: gender and development and gender and globalisation

GI410 Screening the Present: Contemporary Cinema and Cultural Critique 

This course offers students the opportunity to critically explore contemporary international cinema as a site for the interrogation of contested contemporary social and political processes such as migration, globalisation and conflict. 

GI411 Gender, Postcoloniality, Development: Critical Perspectives and New Directions

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the growing body of scholarship that critically interrogates gender and developmentalism at various postcolonial sites.

GI413 Gender, Race and Militarisation

This course will provide students with an overview of militarisation and its gendered basis and effects.

GI414 Theorising Gender and Social Policy

This course aims to equip students with the knowledge and theoretical tools that will allow them to critically engage with social policy issues and debates

GI415 Gender and Welfare Regimes: Developments and Change

The course investigates the different ways in which gender is incorporated into national welfare states and the impact of national structures on the patterns and prevalence of gender inequalities.

GI417 Feminist Population Politics  (NOT RUNNING 2024-25)

Examining the complex inter-relationship between population issues and policy, students on this course will develop an appreciation of the potential contribution and impact that a feminist and gendered perspective has to offer. 

GI418 Feminist Economics and Policy: An Introduction 

As economic processes have a profound influence on social life, gender relations and gender equality, and vice versa, this course seeks to expose students interested in gender to the work of Feminist Economists.

GI420 Global Development and Its Discontents: Feminist Perspectives

This course deals with theories relating to policy, politics and power in the field of gender and international development.

GI421 Sexuality, Gender and Culture

This course introduces students to historical and theoretical components of the field, and explores case studies of the development of sexual cultures, identities and social movements from the late 19th century to the present.

GI422 Transnational Sexual Politics

This course takes a case-study approach to questions of sexuality, gender and culture (in the first term) and to sexuality in the contexts of globalization (in the second).

GI424 Gender Theories: An Interdisciplinary Approach

The course aims to enable students to become familiar with the fullest range of gender theories with particular attention to the intersections of gender, sexuality and race.

GI425 Introduction to Gender, Peace and Security

This course provides a critical examination of peace and security issues affecting women in conflict and post-conflict contexts.

GI426 Gender and Human Rights

This course will provide the students with a transnational gender perspective on contemporary theories and practices of rights/human rights and humanitarianism.

GI427 Advanced Issues in Gender, Peace and Security

This course is for MSc Gender, Peace and Security students only. It will provide an in-depth examination of peace and security issues affecting women in a global world.

GI428 Bodies, Culture and Politics

The course will explore different constructions and understandings of gendered and sexualised bodies at the intersection between politics of resistance, arts, and cultural practices.

GI429 Archival Interventions: Feminist, Queer and Decolonial Approaches

This course will foreground an interdisciplinary approach to he archive that provides students with skills to approach archival work for their own research, and embed them in the critical work on archives that characterises much of the secondary and theoretical literature in the field.

GI499 Independent Research Project

Students on this course will be introduced to dissertation guidelines, common difficulties, ethical issues, basics in research practice, managing sources, and the process of research and writing.