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Western European national policies increasingly portray diversity as negative and migrants as ‘others’ who do not belong to the national community. This article examines how local governments articulate alternative discourses of belonging based on residents' shared membership in the civic life of the city. In a Dutch case study, the ways in which local policymakers diverge from exclusionary national narratives are examined. It is argued that discourses about urban citizenship offer opportunities for the inclusion of migrants by drawing new boundaries between ‘good’ citizens and those who are unwilling to participate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Diverse schools have become the norm throughout much of what is considered the West. Many urban classrooms feature few white European children but are located in nations dominated by Eurocentric epistemologies and discourses that oppress minority students by devaluing their cultures. Most European scholarship fails to analyse cultures of whiteness in educational settings. This paper addresses this gap by documenting cultural discourses of whiteness infusing a diverse primary school classroom in Amsterdam. Discourses reflecting white cultural norms of order, time, cleanliness, and Western and Christian superiority dominated a classroom containing only one white Dutch child. These discourses contribute to diverse students' explicit racialization while promoting the supremacy of white Dutch culture. They are both assimilationist and exclusionary, suggesting that many students, because of their backgrounds, will never be considered fully Dutch. Findings are of relevance to all nations dominated by white cultures with large populations of students of colour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper revisits the contact hypothesis by assessing differences in generalized trust among participants of Turkish non-profit organizations and ethnically mixed organizations in Amsterdam. Most voluntary sector research takes the contact hypothesis at its core and assumes that the concentration of ethnic minorities in non-profit organizations is detrimental to learning generalized trust. These studies assume that diversity within organizations is better for developing generalized norms without examining participation in ethnically homogenous organizations. I address this gap in the literature by analysing the variance of generalized trust among organizations and their participants. I achieve this through the analysis of purposively designed survey data. The findings suggest that a contact mechanism at voluntary organizations is problematic and should not be asserted uncritically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How migration and mobilizations of difference are accommodated at the local level is a burning question. Concepts adopted by local governments and the capacities of cities to formulate and implement these have received increasing attention, but often without examining the ideas and norms that underlie local concepts and practices. This article assesses the hypothesis of local-level pragmatism, which it rejects, and develops the notion of ‘paradigmatic pragmatism’ to characterize how local-level politics address mobilizations of difference. Based on empirical findings from Amsterdam, Antwerp and Leeds, and comparing the content and the implementation of ‘diversity policies’, I argue against a dichotomy of pragmatic vs ideational politics. Instead, these cities draw on a variety of ideas and pragmatically combine them under the header of diversity. This paradigmatic pragmatism invites further research on the effects of potential incompatibilities of immigrant policy ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]