Samenvatting

This paper links the discussion on superdiversity and its call for multidimensional shifts in migration patterns and the ‘diversification of diversity’ this has led to, to the development of immigrant integration policies that tend to focus on traditional migrant groups. Considered from the superdiversity perspective these groups are an simplification of the diversity within and between the migrant population. Furthermore, the diversification of the society as a whole calls into question who should be targeted for immigrant integration policies at all, and in what direction they should point, in a society that has changed itself as a consequence of immigration (Crul, 2016). How do these questions speak to the world of immigrant integration policy making? This paper links this question to the trend of ‘mainstreaming’ in immigrant integration governance. Across Europe traditional immigrant integration policies have been replaced by universal policies, generic policies, targeted at the entire population, such as broad city-citizenship approaches or incorporating former immigrant integration policies in generic educational or community policies. This paper discusses material from different European cases between 2000-2014 to explore whether this broad, mainstreaming approach can be considered a policy-answer to the questions and challenges the superdiversity discussion raises for immigrant integration policies.