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Example of a search profile

The question concerned general government policy concerning the labour market position of immigrant, well-educated women.

The question was divided into the following elements: immigrants, women, labour market and government policy.

Search terms were then devised for these elements.

A general search profile could take the following form:

Ethnic group* or ethnic minorit* or migrant* or immigrant* or people of colo?r or ethnicity or ethnic identity or plural societies or cultural pluralism or racism)

set 1

and

(wom*n or female or sexism or working wom*n or gender)

set 2

and

(labo?r market or career or sexual division labo?r or occupational segregation or glass ceiling)

set 3

and

(government policy or human resource management or affirmative action)

set 4

Tips:

  • this combining of terms differs in practice from database to database, just as search terms will differ per database. However, the result is always a collection of titles that at least contains one search term of each part or element of the question. 
  • addition of a keyword such as Netherlands is not helpful when searching in a Dutch-language file. It could be useful when searching an international file, unless you are looking for more general literature about this question.
  • for the search profile for an international database (for example, Sociological Abstracts) you should always use English search terms.