Policy: From Assimilation to Integration?

Abstract

In this chapter, we analyse changing local state multiculturalist policy discourses, policies and practices from the 1960s onwards, following the shift from explicitly assimilationist policies in the 1960s and 1970s, through the perceived heyday of multiculturalism in the 1980s to the citizenship-based integrationism from 2001 onwards. In particular, we examine the relationship between national policy debates and strictures and local policy practice, considering the extent of local policy enactment and mediation and even invention, alongside changing national priorities. In this way, we highlight local experiences and realities in the north of these policy discourses and operations, including contradictions, tensions and creativity. The direction of policy, and the relationship between the national and the local is selectively compared to the situation in other policy jurisdictions that have confronted the issues of diversity and super-diversity.