Dalhousie study looks at employment in Canadian music
Posted Jul 10, 2017 06:26:47 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
HALIFAX – New research out of Dalhousie University is taking a look at work and employment in Canada through 183 Canadian songs.
The researcher behind this project hopes we can use music of the past to take a look at the future of working in Canada.
Dr. Lynn Shaw used songs by Stompin’ Tom Connors, the Rankin Family, Rita McNeil and others in her research.
She tells NEWS 95.7 she wanted to create a way to further understand young people and underemployment in a Canadian context.
“There aren’t too many documents looking at songs about work in Canada,” said Shaw. “I thought it would be a unique opportunity to do an analysis of that and find information that we can glean from our past.”
Shaw says she found a lot of the songs to be about working with natural resources, along with songs that come after a tragedy in the workplace.
Shaw hopes to start a conversation about what we can do to create employment opportunities for young people.
“Young people are the promise of the future, and we would like to see them working and tapping into their potential.”
She says to this day, people are still sending her songs to add to her database.