The role of education in teaching norms and values to adult newcomers: an analysis of integration policy in the Netherlands, with emphasis on the city of Rotterdam

Abstract

This paper presents research on the current debate in the Netherlands regarding integration and the teaching of ‘norms and values’ to adult newcomers. Data consisting of national and local (city of Rotterdam) integration policy documents and interviews with those influential in policy making were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. The analysis revealed that ‘assimilation’ into Dutch norms and values is considered essential to the integration process, and that education is an important means by which newcomers ‘assimilate’. These conclusions impact education in several ways: assimilation does not allow education to explore the complexity of Dutch norms and values; integration policy makes education an instrument of enforcement and exclusion rather than inclusion; obscure or hidden policy objectives may result in the transfer of norms and values not, in fact, thought to be ‘Dutch’.