The Dutch Integration Landscape

Abstract

The changed landscape of Dutch integration politics forms the backdrop of this study. Literature shows that, as in many other European countries, the Netherlands has experienced a ‘culturalization of citizenship’ in which belonging has become defined in cultural terms. The dominant integration discourse dictates that immigrants and their children internalize the progressive ‘Dutch’ norms and identify as Dutch. Based on the zero-sum presumption that one can be only loyal to one country and culture, identification as Moroccan or Turkish is deemed suspect. Particularly Muslims, whose religion is portrayed as inherently incompatible with ‘Dutch culture’, are seen as the Other. Moroccan and Turkish immigrants are most stigmatized in the current integration discourses, and together with their offspring comprise the largest ethnic-minority groups in the Netherlands. They arrived in the Netherlands around the 1970s as labor migrants to work in low-skilled jobs. Most came from rural areas and had very low levels of formal education. Given their backgrounds, it is quite an achievement that nowadays a large and ever-increasing share of their offspring enters higher education levels. Despite some sociocultural differences between the Moroccan Dutch and Turkish Dutch, the commonalities warrant a joint study.