Introduction

Welcome to Law and the Framing of Migrants and Migration, brought to you by the University of Kent.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Sian Lewis-Anthony; I am Senior Lecturer in Law at Kent Law School, University of Kent. I designed this course and you will get to know my voice via the audios. I hope you enjoy the course.

Sian Lewis-Anthony, Senior Lecturer in Law at Kent Law School, University of Kent.

Over the other suggested courses, you can explore how the media and law have roles in framing crises, how millions of migrants are not protected by law, and how states go to great lengths to prevent migrants from reaching their territories. You can also take other courses, designed alongside this one, to enhance your knowledge and improve your overall learning experience.

Further courses are organised in sequence, and for the best learning experience we suggest you follow this order:

• Law and the Framing of Migrants and Migration (this course)
• Freedom of Movement, Refugees, Traffickers, and Smugglers
• Law’s Absence and Law’s Failings

We expect the course to take 12 hours to complete. That said, everyone’s different, and you may find yourself working at a different pace, and that’s fine – one of the benefits of online learning is you can work at a pace that suits you.

However, we strongly encourage you to work through all aspects of the course. You need to mark over 90%+ of steps as complete, attempt every test question, and score an average of at least 70% across all your assessments, to be eligible to gain a certificate

Deepen your learning

But there’s more to engagement than gaining certificates: we are confident that if you engage fully in all parts of this course you’ll likely maximise your learning, encounter other perspectives and ideas, and have a richer learning experience:

• Reading, watching and listening across a variety of steps – some of which are text based, some with rich media.
• Sharing and discussing your learning with course peers – keep an eye out for the prompts which follow many steps, and get ready to spend a little more time on the Discussion steps.
• Developing your ideas through conversation – Educators will not be able to respond directly to comments in this course. We encourage learners to support one another, share personal experiences, and see new perspectives through the comments.

The video on this step introduces the context, the subject matter and the course instructor for this 4-week course.

The Big Question for this course is: How do discourses and law frame migrants and migration?

The Big Question for this week is: What is meant by a critical approach to international migration law?

This week’s objectives

By the end of this week you should be able to:

• describe the overall elements of the ExpertTrack
• investigate the history and varied reasons for migration
• be aware of some of the critiques of migration law.