European civic integration programmes claim to provide newcomers with necessary tools for successful participation. Simultaneously, these programmes have been criticised for being restrictive, market-driven and for working towards an implicit goal of limiting migration. Authors have questioned how these programmes discursively construct an offensive image of the Other and how colonial histories are reproduced in the constructions seen today. The Dutch civic integration programme is considered a leading example of a restrictive programme within Europe. Research has critically questioned the discourses within its policies, yet limited research has moved beyond policy to focus on discourse in texts in practice. This study presents a critical discourse analysis of texts used in the civic integration programme and demonstrates that they participate in multiple discursive constructions: the construction of the Dutch nation-state and its citizens as inherently modern, the construction of the Other as Unmodern and thus a threat, and the construction of the hierarchical relationship between the two. The civic integration programme has been left out of discussions on decolonisation to date, contributing to it remaining a core practice of othering. This study applies post-colonial theories to understand the impacts of current discourse, and forwards possibilities for consideration of decolonised alternatives.
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In January 2022 the new Dutch Civic Integration programme was launched together with promises of improvements it would bring in facilitating the ‘integration’ of newcomers to the Netherlands. This study presents a critical discourse analysis of texts intended for municipalities to take on their new coordinating role in this programme. The analysis aims to understand the discourse in the texts, which actors are mobilized by them, and the role these texts and these actors play in processes of governmental racialization. The analysis demonstrates shifting complex assemblages are brought into cascades of governance in which all actors are disciplined to accept the problem of integration as a problem of cultural difference and distance, and then furthermore disciplined to adopt new practices deemed necessary to identify and even ‘objectively’ measure the inherent traits contributing to this problematic. Lastly, the analysis displays that all actors are disciplined to accept the solution of ‘spontaneous compliance’; a series of practices and knowledges, which move the civic integration programme beyond an aim of responsibilization, into a programme of internalization, wherein newcomers are expected to own and address their problematic ‘nature’, making ‘modern’ values their own.
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With a lack of a clear definition, though a normalized use, the discursive weight of the concept of integration is felt throughout policy and civic integration programmes. In wider societal discourse the term integration is used in a taken-for-granted way, with an assumed understanding of its meaning and the actions which one takes to display its attainment. Studies which aim to explore or measure integration, further reproduce these taken-for-granted realities, a fact which has contributed to the recent debates on the discursive power of ‘integration’ in migration studies. While the debate on integration unfolds within the academic sphere, it’s implementation and discursive power continue in practices which take place in everyday life. Practices which construct the ‘doing’ of integration and which shape the lived experiences of those who encounter them. Practices which contribute to the reproduction of Othering and racialized categories which accompany the concept of integration and its current discursive frame. This paper will thus explore how integration as a concept is shaped and promoted in practices, practices such as texts which migrants encounter in civic integration programmes as well as activities which are promoted during the integration pathway. This analysis allows us for an understanding of integration as it lives and is operationalized at the level of practice and enacted through daily activities one undertakes. This critical discourse analysis will shine light on how these practices contribute to strengthening of hierarchical divisions based on colonialist categories of modernity and Eurocentric depictions of a ‘successful’ everyday life.
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The purpose of this literature study was to obtain an overview of previous civic literacy projects and their characteristics as primarily described in educational science literature. Eighteen academic articles on civic literacy projects in higher education were studied in detail and coded using the qualitative data analysis instrument, Atlas.ti. The codes and quotations compiled were then divided in various categories and represented in a two-axis model. The definitions of ‘civic literacy’ found in the literature varied from an interest in social issues and a critical attitude to a more activist attitude (axis number 1). The analysis of the literature showed that, especially in more recent years, more students than citizens have benefited from civic literacy projects in higher education (axis number 2). The visualization of the findings in the two-axis model helps to place civic literacy projects in a broader frame. The final authenticated version is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13472-3_9
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Ons huidige socialmediagebruik brengt een aantal grote risico’s met zich mee voor de samenleving. Sociale fragmentatie, polarisatie en de verspreiding van misinformatie zijn schadelijk voor de democratie en onze maatschappelijke weerbaarheid. De verslavende werking van sociale media kan ten koste gaan van ons welzijn. De afhankelijkheid van grote buitenlandse techbedrijven, die winst voor aandeelhouders belangrijker vinden dan het borgen van publieke waarden, ondermijnen onze digitale soevereiniteit en zeggenschap over belangrijke communicatiekanalen.
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Whilst until the late 1980s most migration issues developed in a parallel manner but with national specifics, important differences showed up during the 1990s and at the beginning of this decade. Since the middle of the 1990s, there has been an obvious change in policy towards migrants and foreigners in the Netherlands, and those changes have been more or less “exported” to our neighbouring countries and even to the level of the EU. Integration into society with the maintenance of the immigrant’s own culture has been replaced by integration into the Dutch society after passing an integration examination. The focus of this article is to investigate those changes and to compare the implementation of those policies in the Netherlands/Limburg and Germany/NRW, where the official understanding of not being an immigration country was dominant until the end of the 1990s, and where integration has only recently become an important political issue. Both countries are now facing similar challenges for better integration into the society, especially into the educational system. Firstly, the autors describe migration definitions, types, the numbers of migrants and the backgrounds of migrant policies in Germany and the Netherlands up until the middle of the 1990s. Secondly they discuss the integration policies thereafter: the pathway to a new policy and the Action Plan Integration in Germany, and the central ideas of the Civic Integration of Newcomers Act (WIN) in the Netherlands. Integration policy in the Netherlands is highly centralised with little differentiation on the local governmental level when compared to South Limburg. Thirdly, the autors investigate the cross-border cooperation between professional organisations and educational institutions in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine, and the involvement of social work institutions and social workers in their process of integration into the local society and the exchange of each others’ experiences (the ECSW and RECES projects).
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The position of non-EU migrants in social security is problematic. Many European states reduce access to social benefits for categories of migrants whose presence is not desired. At the same time the scope of application of the national systems is becoming more confined to the national borders, as, for example, countries take measures to reduce the exportability of benefits. These two trends of exclusion and retrenchment particularly affect irregular immigrants and persons moving between Europe and developing countries who are not protected by any bilateral social security agreements. The background of these trends can be traced back to the way social security interacts with immigration and civic integration policies. This book addresses this interaction and contains contributions on the social security position of irregular migrants, on the reception of asylum seekers, on income requirements in immigration law, on civic integration, on informal social security protection of formally excluded migrants and on social protection and voluntary return. These separate contributions lead to an overall analysis on the position of excluded migrants. Knowing that the exclusion of certain immigrants from social security is legitimate from the point of view of national policies or even from the point of view of the logics of social security itself, what alternative strategies can be developed in order to give protection to excluded migrants without undermining these policies and logics?
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Lower levels of news use are generally understood to be associated with less political engagement among citizens. But while some people simply have a low preference for news, others avoid the news intentionally. So far little is known about the relationship between active news avoidance and civic engagement in society, a void this study has set out to fill. Based on a four-wave general population panel survey in the Netherlands, conducted between April and July 2020 (N = 1,084) during a crisis situation, this research-in-brief investigates the development of news avoidance and pro-social civic engagement over time. Results suggest that higher news topic avoidance results in higher levels of civic engagement. The study discusses different explanations for why less news can mean more engagement.
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In this article, we examine the relationship between important types of policies for asylum permit holders in the Netherlands and the improvement in their command of Dutch. As far as asylum policy is concerned, we find that participation in activities in the asylum seekers reception centre – and in particular, following Dutch language classes – contribute to an improvement in Syrian asylum permit holders’ command of Dutch. On the other hand, a prolonged period of stay and frequent relocations between reception centres are not favourable. Asylum permit holders who have successfully completed the civic integration programme have a better command of the language than asylum permit holders who are still undergoing the programme. An important finding is that there seems to be a sort of double deficit in the area of civic integration: not only do the elderly and lower educated make less progress in learning Dutch, but they are also the ones more likely to receive a dispensation from the civic integration requirement, which places them at a further disadvantage. Third, we find that early participation in the labour market or as a volunteer is also beneficial for language proficiency.
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