Zoekresultaten

‘New’ Dutch Civic Integration: learning ‘Spontaneous Compliance’ to address inherent difference

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.

Steering in complex education systems

In the wake of neo-liberal informed global trends to set performance standards and intensify accountability, the Dutch government aimed for ‘raising standards for basic skills’. While the implementation of literacy standards was hardly noticed, the introduction of numeracy standards caused a major backlash in secondary schools, which ended in a failed introduction of a high stakes test. How can these major differences be explained? Inspired by Foucault’s governmentality concept a theoretical framework is developed to allow for detailed empirical research on steering processes in complex systems in which many actors are involved in educational decision-making. A mixed-methods multiple embedded case-study was conducted comprising nine school boards and fifteen secondary schools. Analyses unveil processes of responsibilisation, normalisation and emerging dividing practices. Literacy standards reinforced responsibilities of Dutch language teachers; for numeracy, school leadership created entirely new roles and responsibilities for teachers. Literacy standards were incorporated in an already used instrument which made implementation both subtle and inevitable. For numeracy, schools distinguished students by risk of not passing the new test affirming the disciplinary nature of schools in the process. While little changed to address teachers main concerns about students’ literacy skills, the failed introduction of the numeracy test usurped most resources.

Sleeping with the enemy: Audience

Audience studies is not the vibrant field it was in its 1980s and early 1990s heyday. Cultural studies today has a more balanced interest in production, audiences and texts. A renewed focus in audience studies on everyday meaning production, identity and relations of power could benefit from recent developments. Theorization of power especially has benefited from recent work on governmentality. In accord with recent work on ‘affect’, there is an opportunity for renewed vitality and urgency. Was audience studies damaged beyond repair by the charge that it is a populist field that celebrates rather than interrogates everyday media culture? Could a concept such as cultural literacy provide a bridge to help re-establish the critical credibility of audience studies or would it burden this field with its implied notions of standards, distinction and cultural exclusion? The article discusses recent work with youth audiences to inquire into the possibilities of ‘critical literacy’. It proposes taking up questions and insights raised by affect theory, to merge appreciation, criticism and understanding of the forces that drive (the possibility of) change, and to embed critical literacy in cultural studies’ ongoing interest in the construction of (cultural) citizenship.

Neoliberaal onderwijs

Bubbels van creativiteit

Anno 2022 worden de agenda’s van de markt en politiek bepaald door de transities rondom gezondheid, mobiliteit, klimaat en economie. Gemeenschappen die creatief en innovatief met die uitdagingen omgaan zijn niet alleen robuust genoeg om ze te absorberen maar kunnen problemen die op ze af komen ook tijdig herkennen en adresseren. Om de veerkracht in een gemeenschap te ontwikkelen, zijn plekken nodig waar opgaven, middelen, mensen en ideeën bij elkaar komen. Een plek waar bubbels worden doorbroken. Bijna iedere stad kent wel een aantal plekken, zoals broedplaatsen, waar kunstenaars, makers, ontwerpers bij elkaar komen om te creëren en waar bubbels worden doorbroken. Het zijn locaties waar ontmoeting tussen groepen inwoners en professionals tot stand komt; waar innovatie, kruisbestuiving en cultuur worden geproduceerd. Wat opvalt is dat deze parels van creativiteit en ontmoeting vaak zelf als bubbel functioneren ondanks de vele en diverse verbindingen die ze tot stand brengen. Veel broedplaatsen hebben de reputatie een gesloten bolwerk te zijn. Dit maakt hun bubbel kwetsbaar. Creatieve vrijplaatsen staan regelmatig onder druk door krachten van buiten de invloedssfeer van hun organisatie. In dit artikel onderzoeken we de veerkracht van de organisaties die de creatieve plekken beheren en welke strategieën er nodig zijn om in een verhitte vastgoedmarkt te overleven en condities te scheppen voor de makers, kunstenaars en de processen die er plaatsvinden.

‘Doing’ integration: Occupational perspective on discursive power of citizen initiative’s with refugees

Citizens have responded to newcomers in the Netherlands with acts of solidarity and programmes to support integration, often in response to increasingly restrictive government policies. In a previously published study by the primary author, a critical discourse analysis was conducted of texts used in mandatory government integration programmes. Findings showed that texts discursively construct the “modern Us” the “unmodern Other” and a hierarchical relationship between the two, recreating in practice racialized categories reminiscent of colonial times. Considering the role citizen initiatives play in integration, it is important to also understand their discourse on integration. A critical discourse analysis using Bacchi’s What’s the Problem Represented to Be? approach was conducted on texts used in citizen initiatives for integration in the Netherlands. Additionally, as part of a larger institutional ethnography, ethnographic data was gathered on their day-to-day work. These data were analyzed through a theoretical lens inspired by occupational science, governmentality and post/decolonial studies. Initial findings show dominant discourses found in formal integration programmes being actively reproduced in citizen initiatives. Additionally, findings display concepts of ‘successful’ integration, the “Us”, and the “Other” being discursively shaped by promoting ‘modern’ occupations as part of ‘successful’ everyday life. Occupational science is a field with particular interest in social transformation projects, projects often based in the informal sector. Understanding how dominant discourses are reproduced in informal programmes provides important perspectives on their impact on everyday life, demonstrating the importance of remaining critical of discourses in projects operating in the peripheries.