Summary readings migration and citizenship week 2
Duyvendak, J. (2015). Feeling at home in the nation? Understanding
Dutch nostalgia.
Research question: what caused the social and political crisis around the ‘integration’ of immigrants
in the Netherlands, a country often jealously described as an oasis of tolerance?
Some people say the multiculturalist policies created feelings of homelessness. But the entire idea of
the Dutch being (radical) multiculturalists is an inaccurate picture of what really happened and
happens in the Netherlands. While Koopmans et al label the Dutch situation ‘culturally pluralist’, this
gives a misleading picture of what government policies were promoting. Contrary to popular wisdom,
the current crisis of home in the Netherlands is not the result of ‘failed’ multiculturalism.
Another, related, misunderstanding is that the Netherlands has developed into a pluralist, highly
diverse society. The Dutch majority tends to demand that migrants share their ‘modern’ and
‘progressive’ values. This in part reflects the strength of the consensus within the majority
population. The growing consensus around progressive values has created a wider values gap
between the native majority and Muslim immigrants than in countries with less progressive majority
cultures. In all, it is clear that the Dutch majority population increasingly sees cultural differences as a
problem. Polarization over moral traditionalism (regarding all sorts of moral issues) declined, while
polarization over authoritarianism (how to deal with those who buck the consensus) grew.
The rise of authoritarianism has fueled the culturalization of citizenship: a process in which emotions,
feelings, norms and values, symbols and traditions (including religion) come to play a pivotal role in
defining what can be expected of a Dutch citizen. The ‘native’ culture is seen as under threat, leading
to the normative project defining and protecting ‘traditional’ cultural heritage. Emotive
culturalization thus stresses the need for loyalty to the nation-state and demands proof of such
feelings from immigrants.
Culturalization of citizenship has a different but equally heavy influence on both leftwing rightwing
political parties.
A normative and cognitive fit regarding values is a precondition for truly feeling at home: immigrants
have to share in his rather uniform public ‘heaven’ conception of home. Politicians thus tell
immigrants how to feel – above all, to feel at home in the Netherlands. Many immigrants claim that
they already feel at home in the Netherlands – data show that some immigrant groups even feel mor
eat home than the native Dutch.
This assumed incompatibility between ‘us’ and ‘them’ not only fuels suspicions that immigrants don’t
really feel at home Netherlands; the corollary is the claim that the native Dutch feel less at home as
well: they cannot imagine sharing their ‘home’ with people who have such alien norms and values.
The crisis in ‘feeling at home’ has indeed become primarily a problem for the native-born.
According to the Labor Party:
- A minority of ‘aliens’ has caused the majority’s feelings of alienation.
- It is patently unjust that triose who have been ‘rooted’ in the Netherlands for generations
are now suffering from such feelings of alienation.
- The native Dutch, it is argued, have become like foreigners in their own country feeling what
foreigners should allegedly feel: not at home. Politicians suggest that the native Dutch feel
, estranged and besieged by immigrants, and are therefore in a legitimate position ‘to claim
their country back’.
How to reclaim the country? By developing a ‘thick’ notion of what it is to be Dutch. This makes it
impossible for foreigners to claim Dutchness and/or to feel at home. Mobilizing a thick notion of
home runs the risk that instead of including, one excludes those who don’t want to share this notion
of home.
The one hand, migrants are forced to identify with the Dutch nation more then ever before (other
loyalties are not permitted, as feeling at home means feeling at home in the nation). On the other
hand, the thickening and historical rooting of Dutch identity makes it much harder for newcomers to
identify with. The thick, historically rooted idea of ‘home’ thus has highly ambivalent and paradoxical
effects. Though presented to ‘support’ immigrants, in reality it blocks their integration; obliged to
feel at home in their country of residence, this ‘home’ is constructed in such a way that they can
never really feel a part of it.
Around 70 percent of all immigrants feel at home in the Netherlands.
Compared to Europe, the ‘crisis of home’ in the US is less acute at the national level, though some
politicians mobilize feelings insecurity and fear that ‘overwhelm proactive aspects of home as
friendly place where residents feel safe and comfortable’.
Quillian, L. (2006). New approaches to understanding racial prejudice
and discrimination.
Main point: research on implicit prejudice provides an important new understanding of the basis of
discrimination and should be incorporated in sociological accounts.
Prejudice = antipathy based on a faulty or inflexible generalization.
Discrimination = unequal treatment among racial groups.
Unlike prejudice, which is an attitude in people’s heads, discrimination is present in behavior.
Racial discrimination = the difference between the treatment that a target group actually receives
and the treatment they would receive if they were not members of the target group but were
otherwise the same.
Critique on recent work on the measurement of discrimination
The major problem with the statistical analysis of observational data is that it relies upon measuring
racial discrimination as a residual: Discrimination remaining racial difference after statistically
accounting for all other race-related influences on the outcome.
Like all methods, audit studies have limits. Audits can be difficult to conduct and are infeasible for
measuring some outcomes, such as job promotion. Audits also do not provide any direct or easy way
to determine how much of a racial disparity can be explained by discrimination.
Audit studies are not double blind - auditors know the purpose of the audit—raising the possibility
that auditors have somehow altered their behavior to confirm the purpose of finding discrimination.
Second, Heckman & Siegelman (1993) suggest that holding other characteristics affecting the
outcome constant may exaggerate the apparent race effect because race becomes the only
differentiating factor among the pair, unlike situations real labor markets.
Despite these imperfections, when well conducted, audits are the only method that can reliably
document discrimination in a fashion that is difficult to debate.
Duyvendak, J. (2015). Feeling at home in the nation? Understanding
Dutch nostalgia.
Research question: what caused the social and political crisis around the ‘integration’ of immigrants
in the Netherlands, a country often jealously described as an oasis of tolerance?
Some people say the multiculturalist policies created feelings of homelessness. But the entire idea of
the Dutch being (radical) multiculturalists is an inaccurate picture of what really happened and
happens in the Netherlands. While Koopmans et al label the Dutch situation ‘culturally pluralist’, this
gives a misleading picture of what government policies were promoting. Contrary to popular wisdom,
the current crisis of home in the Netherlands is not the result of ‘failed’ multiculturalism.
Another, related, misunderstanding is that the Netherlands has developed into a pluralist, highly
diverse society. The Dutch majority tends to demand that migrants share their ‘modern’ and
‘progressive’ values. This in part reflects the strength of the consensus within the majority
population. The growing consensus around progressive values has created a wider values gap
between the native majority and Muslim immigrants than in countries with less progressive majority
cultures. In all, it is clear that the Dutch majority population increasingly sees cultural differences as a
problem. Polarization over moral traditionalism (regarding all sorts of moral issues) declined, while
polarization over authoritarianism (how to deal with those who buck the consensus) grew.
The rise of authoritarianism has fueled the culturalization of citizenship: a process in which emotions,
feelings, norms and values, symbols and traditions (including religion) come to play a pivotal role in
defining what can be expected of a Dutch citizen. The ‘native’ culture is seen as under threat, leading
to the normative project defining and protecting ‘traditional’ cultural heritage. Emotive
culturalization thus stresses the need for loyalty to the nation-state and demands proof of such
feelings from immigrants.
Culturalization of citizenship has a different but equally heavy influence on both leftwing rightwing
political parties.
A normative and cognitive fit regarding values is a precondition for truly feeling at home: immigrants
have to share in his rather uniform public ‘heaven’ conception of home. Politicians thus tell
immigrants how to feel – above all, to feel at home in the Netherlands. Many immigrants claim that
they already feel at home in the Netherlands – data show that some immigrant groups even feel mor
eat home than the native Dutch.
This assumed incompatibility between ‘us’ and ‘them’ not only fuels suspicions that immigrants don’t
really feel at home Netherlands; the corollary is the claim that the native Dutch feel less at home as
well: they cannot imagine sharing their ‘home’ with people who have such alien norms and values.
The crisis in ‘feeling at home’ has indeed become primarily a problem for the native-born.
According to the Labor Party:
- A minority of ‘aliens’ has caused the majority’s feelings of alienation.
- It is patently unjust that triose who have been ‘rooted’ in the Netherlands for generations
are now suffering from such feelings of alienation.
- The native Dutch, it is argued, have become like foreigners in their own country feeling what
foreigners should allegedly feel: not at home. Politicians suggest that the native Dutch feel
, estranged and besieged by immigrants, and are therefore in a legitimate position ‘to claim
their country back’.
How to reclaim the country? By developing a ‘thick’ notion of what it is to be Dutch. This makes it
impossible for foreigners to claim Dutchness and/or to feel at home. Mobilizing a thick notion of
home runs the risk that instead of including, one excludes those who don’t want to share this notion
of home.
The one hand, migrants are forced to identify with the Dutch nation more then ever before (other
loyalties are not permitted, as feeling at home means feeling at home in the nation). On the other
hand, the thickening and historical rooting of Dutch identity makes it much harder for newcomers to
identify with. The thick, historically rooted idea of ‘home’ thus has highly ambivalent and paradoxical
effects. Though presented to ‘support’ immigrants, in reality it blocks their integration; obliged to
feel at home in their country of residence, this ‘home’ is constructed in such a way that they can
never really feel a part of it.
Around 70 percent of all immigrants feel at home in the Netherlands.
Compared to Europe, the ‘crisis of home’ in the US is less acute at the national level, though some
politicians mobilize feelings insecurity and fear that ‘overwhelm proactive aspects of home as
friendly place where residents feel safe and comfortable’.
Quillian, L. (2006). New approaches to understanding racial prejudice
and discrimination.
Main point: research on implicit prejudice provides an important new understanding of the basis of
discrimination and should be incorporated in sociological accounts.
Prejudice = antipathy based on a faulty or inflexible generalization.
Discrimination = unequal treatment among racial groups.
Unlike prejudice, which is an attitude in people’s heads, discrimination is present in behavior.
Racial discrimination = the difference between the treatment that a target group actually receives
and the treatment they would receive if they were not members of the target group but were
otherwise the same.
Critique on recent work on the measurement of discrimination
The major problem with the statistical analysis of observational data is that it relies upon measuring
racial discrimination as a residual: Discrimination remaining racial difference after statistically
accounting for all other race-related influences on the outcome.
Like all methods, audit studies have limits. Audits can be difficult to conduct and are infeasible for
measuring some outcomes, such as job promotion. Audits also do not provide any direct or easy way
to determine how much of a racial disparity can be explained by discrimination.
Audit studies are not double blind - auditors know the purpose of the audit—raising the possibility
that auditors have somehow altered their behavior to confirm the purpose of finding discrimination.
Second, Heckman & Siegelman (1993) suggest that holding other characteristics affecting the
outcome constant may exaggerate the apparent race effect because race becomes the only
differentiating factor among the pair, unlike situations real labor markets.
Despite these imperfections, when well conducted, audits are the only method that can reliably
document discrimination in a fashion that is difficult to debate.
