Language of Migration: Guest workers in Germany – Teaching Diversity and Critical Thinking

Abstract

I presented the following research findings in my German Cultural History course and my Introduction to International Studies course when we discussed migration in Germany. I introduced media analysis to investigate with the students how media discourse affects how people perceive migrants and how stereotypes and prejudice arise. By hearing about and discussing my research findings the students had to think critically about language, read between the lines, and closely examine the socio-political background of post-war migration in order to understand language choices in newspaper headlines. While migration in Germany is not a new topic, one finds that the Turkish migrant experience dominates in the literature. In addition to providing a general picture of guest workers in Germany, therefore, I presented newspaper articles that deal with the Korean migrant experience in Germany so that students might gain a view of migrant history in Germany different from the Turkish perspective.