Civic Education and Youth Citizenship in Times of Immigrant Integration Policy Changes in the Netherlands

• In Event: Education for Cultural Diversity: Changing Policy and Curriculum Priorities in Volatile International Contexts

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the current policy context in the Netherlands regarding education for cultural diversity and to assess its impact on immigrant youth.
The Netherlands has a substantial immigrant population. According to Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek [CBS] (2016), almost quarter of 17 million Dutch population is of immigrant origin. 17 per cent of children in the senior class of Dutch primary schools are of non-western origin first or second-generation immigrants.The Nederlands hosts several groups of immigrants besides cross-border German and Belgian immigrants and postcolonial Indonesian minority, the biggest group comprises of work immigrants from Turkey and Morocco, who arrived to the Netherlands in 1970s and 1980s and new work immigration from central Europe e.g. Poles and Romanians. Most recent immigration to the Netherlands consists of refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria.
The Netherlands is a country of diverse, often contradictory and dynamically changing views and policies with regard to civic integration of immigrants (Entzinger 2014; Duyvendak and Scholten 2012). For many years the Netherlands adopted a multicultural model of migrant integration (Modood and Werbner 1997). This model is characterized by cultural diversity through recognition and accommodation of cultural, ethnic and religious immigrant minorities (Duyvendak and Scholten 2012) rooted in pre-existing institutionalized cultural and religious pluralism of Dutch society consisting of separate subpopulations of Protestants, Catholics, socialists and liberals living next to each other. Over the years the multicultural policies went through evolution from cultural isolationism, via economic integration, social integration (Entzinger 2014) all the way to assimilationist stance represented by some of ruling political parties. These developments had their reflection in Dutch educational system and regulations concerning citizenship education aiming to satisfy conflicting demands. This resulted in lack of systematic approach, and schools forced to define what they wanted to teach students on their own, and method of education mostly dependent on the individual teacher’s disposition (Inspectie van Onderwijs 2017). With the help of the data from the existing studies we will aim to answer the questions how the Duch schools realize their socializing mission, and how do the Dutch youth of immigrant origin construct their citizenship and civic competency in the context of rapid change in discourse and policies accompanied by unclear expectations in respect to immigrants civic integration and role of education in this process.

Author

• Marcin Sklad, Utrecht University