Curricular Alienation: Multiculturalism, Tolerance, and Immigrants in Dutch Primary School History Textbooks

The stories found in a nation’s history textbooks are profound statements about the way the nation sees itself. Textbooks that exclude certain groups alienate these children and may lead to disengagement from education and lower levels of educational attainment. The Netherlands is known internationally for its tolerance and multiculturalism, particularly towards immigrants, and sees these elements as critical to their national identity. However, historical and contemporary policies and social attitudes towards immigrants reveals levels of racism not unlike their European peers who, like The Netherlands, have experienced increased immigration and xenophobia in the last decades. In the educational domain, multicultural policies of the 1990s have shifted to those emphasizing assimilation, with immigrants often blamed for low educational attainment. This paper examines how immigrants, multiculturalism, and tolerance are represented in all Dutch primary school history textbooks published since 1980 to identify trends to determine whether or not they reflect larger political discourses and speculate as to the potential effects of these depictions on the children who read them. Preliminary analysis suggests that immigrant groups are depicted as culturally different outsiders from underdeveloped, poor, and violence nations who cause problems for the Dutch society that benevolently allows them entry. Textbooks fail to meaningfully address discrimination in The Netherlands suggesting that immigrants’ failure to integrate is due to cultural differences, which likely enhances social alienation among the many immigrant students encountering these texts. Findings are of relevance to multiple nations with large immigrant populations.