IMER II: The Challenges of Ethnic Diversity

Literature review - Instructions

One of the most important steps in research is the literature review. This is where the researcher has a look at what is done within a field and where the research front is. The literature review will be an important part of your bachelor thesis when it is time for you to write that.
Your task is to perform and write a literature review, 3000 words (+or- 10%, excluding the reference list)

Themes for the literature review

The themes chosen for the literature review is the same as the core areas for the course, Integration, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism. Within one of these themes, you will select a case and focus on that. A case could be, for example, multiculturalism in Canada or, the social integration of Iraqi migrants. The themes are broad and you need to narrow down your focus for the review in order to make it succinct. A good starting point for you is, of course, the course literature and the lectures on the course, but this is only the starting point. In order for you to write a good review, you need to delve deeper into the specific field of research by searching for research, books, and articles in the databases that library have access to.

The task
You are going to specify a case within one of the three, above-mentioned, areas that can be answered by performing a literature review. The aim of the literature review is to answer the following: What are the main themes in the specific research field that you have chosen?

- What does the research say about the empirical results?

- What are the main theoretical perspectives?

- Possibly identify areas for future research?

The Process

The first step of the literature review is to formulate a researchable and searchable case. This will probably take some time and the question will probably also develop and evolve during the early parts of your work. As soon as you have a question that you think is interesting it is time for the second part in the process - the literature search.

Step two, the literature search starts with you formulating search terms (keywords). These terms should be connected to your research question. When you have created these search terms it is time to start searching in databases. OBSERVE!!! You must use the databases provided by the library, Google and Google Scholar are not allowed!!! The databases that is most relevant for you is Libsearch, Academic Search Elite and JSTOR. You also need to document your search and show your search to the supervisor. Document your search in the table provided in the end of this document. The Search table should also be provided as an appendix to your literature review.

After the search, it is time to read the chosen articles and write the review. Useful questions when reading research is: What is the aim? Why have the authors chosen the aim? How do the authors fulfill the aim? What are the major conclusions? Is the research solid or are there problematic areas in the research? How does the research relate to your research and your research question?

When you write your review you present the research that you have found with the help of the questions above. The review should end with a discussion on what major conclusions you have drawn from the literature and a discussion on how to bring the research forward.
When you write your review you must use Harvard-style referencing.