Assessment Task 3:Analysis of Contemporary Media Reporting on the World of Work
Work in a Global Society
Topic 8: The Globalisation of Labour: The Migrant Experience
Tutorial Exercise
1
Key concepts and essay questions:
Concepts:
Skills shortage
Labour shortage
Exploitation
Decent work
Questions:
Why is skilled migration often controversial?
What are some of the barriers that skilled migrant workers confront in finding employment and ‘decent work’? Discuss drawing upon the evidence and arguments presented in the relevant readings.
Is Australia doing enough to stop the exploitation of migrant workers?
If yes, explain what has been effective in addressing the mistreatment of migrant workers.
If not, explain what is needed to prevent migrant workers from being mistreated in the labour market.
RMIT University
Slide 2
Required Readings
Huang, S. and Yeoh, B. (2003) ‘The Difference Gender Makes: State Policy and Contract Migrant Workers in Singapore’ Asian and Pacific Migration Journal , 12 (1-2): 75-97
Ong, Y (2014) ‘Singapore’s Phantom Workers’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 44(3): 443-463.
Yea, S and Chok, S (2018) ‘Unfreedom Unbound: Developing a Cumulative Approach to Understanding Unfree Labour in Singapore’, Work, Employment and Society, 32(5): 925-941.
RMIT University
Slide 3
Work in the News
RMIT University©yyyy
School/Department/Area
4
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54654813
Work in the News
RMIT University©yyyy
School/Department/Area
5
Why is skilled migration often controversial?
In groups, take 15 minutes to do a ‘google media’ search using a keyword search: Migrants and jobs; migrants and employment; migrants and unemployment, migrants and labour market, migrants and pay, etc.). Each group should concentrate on a different country or region (e.g. Australia, Britain, Germany, United States, Singapore, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, etc.).
Identify the major themes and controversies across the media reports.
| Country/Region: | Theme/controversy |
| 1. | |
| 2. | |
| 3. | |
| 4. | |
| 5. | |
| 6. | |
| 7. |
Why is skilled migration often controversial?
Across the different countries/ regions are there differences in themes/controversies?
Across the different countries/ regions are there similarities in themes/controversies?
Why do you think the media reports on these themes/controversies?
What are the implications for migrants? Societies?
Is Singapore doing enough to stop the exploitation of migrant workers? -If yes, explain what has been effective in addressing the mistreatment of migrant workers. -If not, explain what is needed to prevent migrant workers from being mistreated in the labour market.
Form two groups with one group developing the ‘yes’ response and the second group developing the ‘no’ response.
Draw upon readings and resources for this topic (including media articles from the previous exercise).
| Yes, Singapore is doing enough to protect migrant workers from mistreatment through the following actions: | No, Singapore is not doing enough to protect migrant workers from mistreatment. Australia should do the following to better protect migrant workers: |
‘Deconstructing’ a Research Article
Download the following article:
Campbell, M, Boese, M and Tham, J (2016) ‘Inhospitable Workplaces? International students and paid work in food services’, Australian Journal of Social Issues, 51(3): 279-98.
In your assignment groups, answer the following questions:
What is the research question that the authors are investigating?
What methods do they adopt to find answers to their question?
What themes do they identify in the data?
What are the findings under each theme?
How are the findings evidenced in the paper (i.e. how are quotes used, how is each theme explained)?
Do you find the research convincing? Why?
Work in Global Society
Analysing qualitative data
11
So you’ve done your interview…what next?
Transcribe the interview (write out the interview word-for-word)
Code your transcript (discussed next)
Share your transcript and coding with your group members
Read through your other group member’s transcripts and codes (and add any that you think are important)
As a group, determine the most important codes and begin to develop into findings for the report
What is coding?
“Coding is the process of organizing and sorting your data. Codes serve as a way to label, compile and organize your data. They also allow you to summarize and synthesize what is happening in your data.
Coding can be done in any number of ways, but it usually involves assigning a word, phrase, number or symbol to each coding category” (Centre for Evaluation and Research 2012: 1).
Think as you code
As you code your data, think of questions such as:
What are they saying?
Why did they say this?
What are they trying to tell me?
What is this an example of?
What is happening here?
How does this relate to my research question?
Why is coding important?
It allows you to effectively extract the most important elements of each interview
It provides a way to find similar themes from each interview
It helps you to think critically about what is being said in each interview
It makes the write-up of the report easier by having the key codes of each interview in one document
Thematically analysing the data
There are five stages to analysing your data (Braun and Clarke, 2006):
Familiarising yourself with the data
Generating initial codes
Searching for themes
Reviewing themes
Defining and naming themes
Producing the report
1. Familiarising yourself with the data
Transcribe your interview
Read, read, and re-read your transcribed interview
Make notes of initial ideas, such as important comments or potential codes that you will use for the next stage
Note down any other important elements of the interviews (such as the way people said things)
2. Generating initial codes
Read through your interview systematically and begin coding the data
Code the interesting discussions from the interview by using key terms, symbols and sentences that identifies the particular code
“If coding manually, you can code your data by writing notes on the texts you are analysing, by using highlighters or coloured pens to indicate potential patterns, or by using ‘post-it’ notes to identify segments of data” (Braun and Clarke 2006: 89)
Code as many themes/patterns as possible (you don’t need to discuss them all, it’s just about having lots to work with)
You may have codes that fit into a few different themes. That is fine!
Do not ignore contradictions or inconsistencies – these are often very interesting
To assist with storing codes, Microsoft Excel can be a useful place to store codes
Activity one
Each student reads through the first page of their interview and begins identifying codes from their transcript. This can be done on the computer or using hard copy. Once you have coded the first page, discuss the key codes with your group, answering:
What are the codes that you have identified?
Why have you identified that code?
How do your codes relate to the research question?
Can any of the codes be categorised into similar overarching themes?
3. Searching for themes
Now you need to collate your initial codes into key themes - you should do this with the codes from all group members
At this stage, “you are starting to analyse your codes and consider how different codes may combine to form an overarching theme” (Braun and Clarke 2006: 89)
Mind maps can be useful in organising codes into overarching themes
During this stage, you are likely to discard some of your codes
4. Reviewing themes
Once you have developed your themes, this stage is focused on refining these themes
You use this stage to eliminate themes that are not strong (e.g. not supported by many interviewees) or don’t address the research question. You may also merge themes during this stage
This stage also requires you to ensure that each code represents the theme. It is crucial that you do not misrepresent your interviewees, so reading through the interviews again to understand the context is important
You do not need to have lots of themes. You may only have a few key themes which will be discussed in detail in your report
“At the end of this phase, you should have a fairly good idea of what your different themes are, how they fit together, and the overall story they tell about the data” (Braun and Clarke 2006: 92)
5. Defining and naming themes
This stage requires you to refine your themes to identify what each theme is about and what aspects of the data each theme covers
“It is vital that you do not just paraphrase the content of the data extracts presented, but identify what is of interest about them and why” (Braun and Clarke 2006: 92)
During this stage, you should write a detailed analysis of each theme, talking about the story that they tell (using examples from the interviews)
You must ensure that your themes talk to the overarching story
You may identify sub-themes in the analysis (themes within a theme)
Your themes must be clear. A good way to test this is that you are able to explain the theme in a couple of sentences
6. Producing the report
You should not begin to produce the final report until you have your themes fully worked out
The write-up must provide a clearly and coherently articulated account of the data and convinces the reader that your interpretation of the themes is valid
Your themes must include sufficient evidence to support it (e.g. multiple examples from the data)
You MUST do more than simply informing the reader of the data. You need to include an analytical narrative that goes beyond description of the data to make an argument related to your research question
How to write up your themes
It is important that discussions of your findings:
Clearly identifies themes
Each theme provides examples from the interviews (no generic discussion)
Use interview quotes verbatim
Change the names to ensure anonymity
Provide some details about the person you are quoting (e.g. age, profession, employment situation (FT/PT/Casual, etc.).
Quotes are included to highlight a key point made
Do not merely summarise the findings but directly addresses the research question
Your discussions are easy to follow
Campbell et al. (2016) and Brown et al (2010) provide a examples for writing up qualitative research.