Introduction to Migration Studies

Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Introduction to Migration Studies

Full course description

This course serves to understand the basics of migration and migration studies. What really motivates people to migrate? This course gives an introduction into the field of migration studies. Preparing students for the more focused courses that will follow, the introduction covers such topics as the flows and trends in migration and remittances, demography and historical developments, theories of migration from different disciplines such as economics and sociology, different types of migrants and generational issues, an internal migration and to forced migration. Each week in the course has a special theme.

Course objectives

This course aims at making sure students have a basic understanding of terms, definitions and concepts in migration studies. Specifically, students will be able to think critically about the different types of migrants and reasons for migration and well as knowing basic facts about where migrants come from, where they go and how money is sent from country to country by migrants. After completing this course, students should be able to work under pressure and have improved their time management skills using a real life scenario.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

Identify and critically reflect on different types of migrants and reasons for migration and recall basic facts about where migrants come from, where they goand how money is sent from country to country by migrants
work under pressure and demonstrate effective time management skills using a real life scenario of completing a migration profile
analyse the leading theories in the field of migration studies
analyse forced migration in a historical and current context
to undertake analytical and independent research

Prerequisites

None

Introduction to Migration Studies