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POSTPRINT of the paper published 2015 in Identities. Global studies in Culture and Power,
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The exclusionary side-effects of the civic-integration paradigm: boundary processes
among youth in Swiss schools
Kerstin Duemmler
Abstract
Civic-integration policies have become common in many European states and require that
immigrants commit to integrating into the host society. This paper draws on a study with
young people in Swiss schools and investigates how these new political debates around civic-
integration find resonance in everyday narratives about immigration. The boundary approach
is used as a framework to study the daily (re)production of the ‘Swiss-foreigner-divide’. It
reveals that assimilation into ‘Swiss culture’ (e.g. speak the local language and conform to
social norms) remains a criterion defining who can become a legitimate member of Swiss
society. Nonetheless, integration deficits are often perceived as the rule and transformed into a
stigma so that ‘foreigners’ are frequently not recognized as legitimate members of society.
This study indicates how the Swiss youth in this study legitimize and (re)produce exclusion,
and how this exclusion is embedded within past and current Swiss immigration policy.
Key words: immigration policy, civic-integration, boundary-making, Switzerland,
assimilation, youth
During the last decade, many European states have introduced civic-integration policies
because former practices aiming to incorporate immigrants were increasingly believed to have
failed. The belief that there was an integration crisis affected not only states like France,
Germany, Switzerland and Denmark, but also established multicultural states like Britain and
the Netherlands. Whatever their state-specific characteristics, civic-integration policies share
the requirement that immigrants commit to integrating into the host society and acquiring its
POSTPRINT of the paper published 2015 in Identities. Global studies in Culture and Power,
22(4), 378-396 which should be used for any reference to this work
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national characteristics, including language skills, country knowledge and ‘common’ values
like respect for individual freedom and equality (Goodman 2010, 754).
Scholars emphasize that civic-integration policies must be distinguished from earlier
assimilationist policies, which focused on the extent to which immigrants adopted the ‘host
society’s culture’. Unlike these earlier policies, civic-integration policies respect cultural
diversity but argue that immigrants gain autonomy by adopting some important characteristics
of the host society (Goodman 2010, 754; Joppke 2007). Although it is useful to distinguish
between policies, I argue in this article that today’s everyday ideas about civic-integration are
still pervaded by the heritage of assimilationist ideologies. I draw on a study with young
people in Swiss schools and analyse their daily practices and narratives about immigrants and
integration. Although the current Swiss immigration policy declares that cultural diversity is
socially enriching, assimilation into ‘Swiss culture’ remains a dominant criterion through
which these young people define who can become a legitimate member of Swiss society.
Most scientific work on the emerging civic-integration policies has approached the subject
from a political science perspective. Much of this literature comes to the conclusion ‘that
liberal goals are pursued with illiberal means, making it an instance of repressive liberalism’
(Joppke 2007, 1; Triadafilopoulos 2011). Since these policies are intended to promote the
liberal values of freedom and equality, individuals are required to be able to live
autonomously and self-sufficiently. As a consequence, liberal values provoke the illiberal
temptation to introduce measures that exclude or discriminate against those who do not meet
these values (Joppke 2007, 14-19). As Goodman (2010, 769) puts it, ‘Civic integration
requirements are new guidelines for what a “successfully integrated” member of the nation-
state looks like, and that can be particularly alienating notions in countries with half a century
of immigrant related ethnic heterogeneity behind them’.
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This paper makes an original contribution to this on-going research by adopting a social
science perspective. Hardly any research exists that examines the everyday debates and
beliefs about successful civic-integration. Therefore, this paper investigates how these new
political debates find resonance in everyday ideas and narratives about immigration and
integration. Based on an ethnographic study in four Swiss public schools, this article argues
that ordinary beliefs about civic-integration do not necessarily insist on immigrants’ inclusion;
much like the emerging policies in this domain, they might also legitimize their exclusion.
There is a tradition of ethnographic studies focusing on the (re-)production of social
differences and the inclusion or exclusion of immigrant groups in educational settings. Many
of these studies reconstruct how schools as institutions contribute to the exclusion and
inclusion of immigrants by depicting formal (e.g. curricula) and informal mechanisms (e.g.
interactions between teachers and students) that produce social differences (Schiffauer et al.
2002; Bhopal 2011; Bryan 2009; Gomolla and Radtke 2002; Zembylas 2010; Weber 2006).
Some of this ethnographic work studies the lived experiences of immigrant youth in schools
and how their identification and positioning are shaped by institutional ideas about societal
membership and related practices (Mannitz 2003; Sunier 2000). Other studies focus on the
majority students (Benjamin et al. 2003), accounting for their agency and their ability to
contribute to the daily reproduction of social inequalities (Devine et al. 2008). This study
adopts this last focus. Prioritizing the perspective of the Swiss youth, it depicts how their
identities and practices are shaped by integration policy paradigms that contribute to the
creation of social differences and hierarchies.
The paper begins with a theoretical framework through which young people’s everyday ideas
about civic-integration can be studied. Since these ideas revolve around the basic question of
who can become a legitimate member of Swiss society, an analysis that looks at the daily
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(re)production of boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ seems to be a fruitful starting point.
Before I tackle the everyday logics of civic-integration ideologies and practices among the
Swiss youth of this study, however, I outline the former Swiss assimilationist and current
civic-integration policies. Next, I describe the methods used in the ethnographic study, which
examines how social interactions and dynamics between Swiss and immigrant youth in
schools are embedded in a national and local context characterized by specific ideas about
immigration and integration. In the subsequent analysis of the empirical data, I investigate
how the Swiss youth agreed that immigrants have to show a commitment to Swiss national
characteristics. However, integration deficits were often perceived as the rule, and immigrants
were frequently not recognized as legitimate members of society. The conclusion argues that
this study helps us understand how young people legitimize and (re)produce exclusion, and
how this exclusion is embedded within past and current Swiss immigration policy.
A conceptual framework of boundary analysis
The boundary approach has become common in the social sciences because it makes it
possible to investigate the everyday social production and organization of ‘differences’ and
‘similarities’ (Pachucki et al. 2007). Although people can make distinctions along multiple
dimensions and criteria (e.g. ethnicity, gender, religion and social class), this article is
interested in a boundary that emerged during fieldwork between the categories ‘Swiss people’
and ‘foreigners’.1 The boundary approach helps us understand why and how the Swiss youth
reproduced notions of ‘us’ (Swiss) and ‘them’ (foreigners) and defined the criteria for
belonging to ‘our society’.
The approach has mainly evolved in line with a social-constructivist perspective on ethnicity,
which emphasizes that it is not the common culture but the boundary making itself that
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creates ethnic groups. Cultural characteristics – be they real or not – are used as boundary
makers signalling group membership and exclusion. Ethnicity is therefore not a substantial
entity but an interpretative and interactional framework (Brubaker et al. 2004, 45). Scholars
have emphasized that it is necessary to analytically distinguish between symbolic and social
boundaries (Wimmer 2008); this paper deals with the former, which have been defined as:
conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people and
practices... [These distinctions] are tools by which individuals and groups
struggle over and come to agree upon definitions of reality… Symbolic
boundaries also separate people into groups and generate feelings of similarity
and group membership… They are an essential medium through which people
acquire status and monopolize resources. (Lamont and Molnar 2002, 168)
If the majority population agrees with the symbolic boundaries, those boundaries may become
more constraining social boundaries, ‘objectified forms of social differences manifested in
unequal access to and unequal distribution of resources and social opportunities’ (ibid.). There
are two aspects that are particularly important here.
First, boundary processes go along with a status ascription involving a positive or negative
social appreciation of the involved individuals and groups (Weber [1922] 2005, 226). As a
result, boundary-making processes are intimately linked to power relations since they involve
the capacity of people to successfully impose categories of ascription upon other people and
to let a boundary and status hierarchy emerge. Elias and Scotson’s ([1965] 1994) classic study
of exclusion processes in an English suburb, is important here, as it describes the social
mechanisms that enabled a locally ‘established group’ to create a power relationship over a
newly arrived ‘outsider group’ . The ‘established’ succeeded because they could build on (1)
group cohesion (closed social networks) and (2) norms (standards of behaviour) that defined
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them as ‘good’ (charisma) and the others as ‘bad’ (shame) (ibid. 16). This power relation was
maintained through daily gossip, humiliation and stigmatization of the ‘outsiders’ (ibid. 168-
70), who were perceived as disorderly, untrustworthy and criminal (ibid. 21) and were
excluded from various domains.
Second, boundaries are continuously negotiated, since social actors engage in struggles over
social categories and distinctions. The scientific literature describes various strategies
individuals can employ in reacting to and negotiating divisions: they can engage in boundary
blurring, shifting or crossing, or in changing the meaning of boundaries (Zolberg and Woon
1999; Wimmer 2008). Blurring means that the boundary is rendered less salient because
actors draw on criteria other than that suggested by the established distinction (e.g. on
universal criteria like humanity) (Wimmer 2008, 1041f.). Shifting tries to open up the
dominant categories and include former ‘outsiders’ (e.g. older immigrant groups within the
category ‘the Swiss’) (ibid. 1031). Crossing aims to change individual positions with regard
to the boundary (e.g. individual immigrants are identified as ‘Swiss’) (ibid. 1039f.). Finally,
tactics that reinterpret the meaning of boundaries might change the hierarchical ordering of
categories and try to valorise the formerly stigmatized group (ibid. 1037f.).
However, these strategies are seldom employed arbitrarily. Alba (2005, 41) notes that blurring
and shifting may occur when people’s location with regard to the boundary is perceived as
ambiguous by the wider society. Conversely, if (social) boundaries are bright, people know
that there are two sites. In such situations, the (symbolic) boundary cannot easily be
questioned, and thus individual crossing or re-interpretation tactics are more likely to be
employed. To determine whether (social) boundaries can be characterized as bright or
blurred, we have to look at how they are institutionalized in key social spheres. Integration
policy is an important domain when studying the character of the ‘Swiss-foreigner’ boundary
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because it defines who can enter, settle and become naturalized (Bail 2008). The next section
shows how this policy and related political narratives have evolved over time and redefined
the ‘Swiss-foreigner’ boundary.
Assimilation and (civic-)integration paradigms in Swiss immigration policy
Switzerland has been an immigration country for a long time. After the Second World War,
many people from Southern Europe and the then-Yugoslavia were recruited as so-called
‘guest workers’ to work in the industrial and construction sectors. There were two
immigration waves – during the 1960s and the 1980s – from Southern and Eastern Europe.
But there has also been a steady inflow of low- and high-skilled workers during the last two
decades, mainly from European Union countries due to the free circulation of people in the
Schengen Area.2 In fact, since the 1990s labour immigration has been increasingly restricted
to European Union countries; people from other parts of the world only have the possibility of
settling via asylum seeking or family reunification, although exceptions are made for highly
skilled migrants (Piguet 2006, 13-20). Switzerland has always been a destination country for
individuals trying to seek asylum. In the 1960s, asylum seekers came mainly from then-
Communist countries, while during the 1990 they mostly came from the former Yugoslavia
due to the different wars in the Balkans (ibid. 78-112). Although many ‘guest workers’ and
asylum seekers subsequently returned to their countries of origin, a high number of families
stayed – more than one-third of the population are either immigrants or children of
immigrants – leading today to a very diversified population with regard to national origin and
religion (ibid. 1-13).
During the last 60 years, the integration policy that Switzerland has adopted towards its
immigrants has changed profoundly. At the beginning, permanent settlement was not desired
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and even prohibited by according immigrants the status of ‘Saisonniers’, which required them
to return to their home country after nine months of work. Yet many immigrants regularly
came back and found ways to stay their whole lives. This early restrictive approach to
immigration changed when Switzerland started to compete for foreign labour with other
European countries (Piguet 2006, 23-29). From the 1960s onwards, Switzerland ameliorated
the settlement situation of immigrants (e.g. conditions for family reunification) and adopted a
more inclusionary approach that can be characterized as an assimilation paradigm.
Assimilation was perceived as a process in which immigrants adapted to ‘Swiss culture’, i.e.
learned the local language, adopted local habits and participated in community life. The goal
was to ensure that the ‘culture of the immigrants’ would completely melt into ‘Swiss culture’.
For decades, the assimilation of immigrants was seen as the main political solution to the
popular fear of ‘foreign infiltration’ (kulturelle Überfremdung) (Mahnig and Piguet 2003, 77;
Niederberger 2004, 54-56).
Due to the influence of multicultural policies in various European countries, the assimilation
paradigm became untenable during the 1990s and was replaced by an integration paradigm
(Dahinden 2011). Accordingly, federal policymakers and policy documents announced that
immigrants no longer had to adapt completely to Swiss culture or abandon their ‘cultural
particularities’ (Niederberger 2004, 147), which were now regarded as enriching for Swiss
society (e.g. cultural diversity should be discussed in schools and recognized). Moreover, the
Swiss host society was perceived as responsible for immigrants’ integration, and since 2002
the Swiss Confederation has provided for the first time a yearly credit for various integration
programs that are implemented at the cantonal level (Piguet 2006, 142-149). Hence, this
federal integration paradigm had a clear influence on cantonal policies.
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In the canton of Lucerne, where the study took place, a shift to civic-integration policies
began in the early 2000s, when it released its initial integration guidelines (Regierungsrat
Luzern 2001). The principles it contained claimed that cultural and religious diversity due to
immigration are enriching for Swiss society and should be respected and recognized (e.g. to
speak a foreign language, to transmit religious values). But they also emphasized that
immigrants will gain more recognition and acquire equal chances to participate in Swiss
society if they integrate into Swiss culture (e.g. speak the local language, respect the social
and legal order). The Lucerne guidelines also argued against separate ethnic communities and
favoured instead more contact between ethno-national groups.
At the Swiss federal level, the policy shift towards civic-integration has occurred mainly
during the last decade. The initial aim to support integration programs (e.g. against
discrimination in the labour market) has been overlaid with the idea of controlling for
integration deficits (Wicker 2009, 25). Insufficient integration was increasingly perceived as a
threat to economic prosperity (e.g. immigrants as a financial burden) and social cohesion (e.g.
shrinking acceptance of immigration). As a consequence, individual efforts to become
integrated on the part of immigrants themselves were increasingly required. This new focus
was expressed in the new Foreigner Law (AuG) of 2008, according to which immigrants from
non-EU/EFTA states have to prove integration if they want to receive a permanent-residence
permit and ask to become naturalized (Wicker 2009, 35). The integration criteria are: to
respect the Federal Constitution, adhere to law and order, speak a national language and
participate in the labour market. In the case of integration deficits, immigrants from non-EU
countries can be asked to sign integration contracts, and if the obligations are not fulfilled
they risk losing their residence permits.
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These developments show that civic-integration policies (Joppke, 2007, Goodman, 2010)
have reached Switzerland: cultural particularities are perceived as enriching for society and
individual integration efforts are accentuated at the same time. As a consequence, the
boundary defining who can become a member of Swiss society can be characterized as bright,
in particular for immigrants from non-EU countries. Those who do not fulfil the criteria to
live autonomously and self-sufficiently are faced with stricter institutional barriers to settling
and becoming naturalized.
Methodology: An ethnographic study in schools
Schools are interesting sites in which to study how political debates around ‘successful
integration’ resonate in everyday life and are mobilized to legitimize the daily stigmatization
of immigrants. Students of different origins interact in classes, which results in boundary-
making processes that define who belongs to the ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups. Although students do
not necessarily establish a ‘Swiss-foreigner’ divide, they may draw on ideas about ‘successful
integration’ to define the legitimate members of their ‘in’ groups and even of Swiss society.
The study was part of a wider research project interested in the role that religion and ethnicity
play in boundary processes among young people, aged 16 to 19, in Swiss schools (canton
Lucerne and Neuchâtel)3. Thus, the sampling strategies, as well as the principles of data
collection, were the result of collaboration between three researchers, myself included, while
the analysis presented here was produced by me. In Lucerne, where this study took place, four
classes leading to different careers in the labour market were sampled: three provide
vocational education and another is an upper-secondary academic school providing direct
entry to university. In Switzerland, two-thirds of students opt for vocational training after
secondary education that typically combines professional education in schools (one or two
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days per week) and in companies (three or four days). The classes gave us access to a variety
of students with regard to gender, class and ethnic origin so that our sample represents quite
well the young people living in Lucerne (Duemmler 2015).
Lucerne is a canton of 370,000 inhabitants, of whom 16 per cent are foreign nationals –
slightly lower than the Swiss average of 21 per cent – originating mainly from the former
Yugoslavia, Germany, Italy and Portugal (LUSTAT 2010, 2). Most of the students in the
classes were Swiss. Twenty to 30 per cent of the students were first- or second-generation
immigrants, predominately from Kosovo or other former Yugoslavian states; only few had
ancestors from EU countries (e.g. Portugal), or other continents (e.g. Asia). Here, I focus
solely on the Swiss students (having at least one Swiss parent, which accords them Swiss
citizenship rights by birth) to study the narratives and practices they employ to legitimize and
reproduce the ‘Swiss-foreigner’ boundary. The positioning towards this boundary-making on
the part of the immigrant students (first generation) or of those with immigrant parents
(second generation) has been discussed elsewhere (Duemmler 2015).
One of my co-researchers and I applied an ethnographic approach and observed the
interactions among students and teachers for four months in 2008 and 2009 (three or four days
per week). We made notes during lessons and produced thick descriptions afterwards. I
further draw on 28 semi-directed interviews with Swiss students about their and other
students’ ethno-national backgrounds. We selected students with different views (expressed
during lessons and breaks) on immigration. All data was transcribed, and inductive codes
were developed during an iterative process inspired by the Grounded Theory methodology
(Glaser and Strauss 1967). This approach makes it possible to integrate various types of data
and focus on processes, interactions and narratives while going beyond the experiences of
single individuals. The ‘integration paradigm’ was one of the central codes and characterized
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the ‘Swiss-foreigner’ boundary that emerged from the data. Interestingly, students’ narratives
and practices not only established this boundary, but also questioned it. Even so, the
integration paradigm remained unchallenged.
The ‘civic-integration paradigm’ and the (re)production of the ‘Swiss-foreigner’
boundary
In their daily narratives, the Swiss youth made regular use of the categories ‘Swiss people’
and ‘foreigners’. They employed this division in an unproblematic way to set apart people
who immigrated (or whose parents immigrated) from those of Swiss origin. Even those who
had acquired Swiss citizenship through naturalization could be classified as ‘foreigners’
because the criteria of belonging to the category ‘Swiss people’ was not their legal status but
others’ perception of whether they had integrated. In other words, first- or second-generation
immigrants were described as ‘foreigners’ if they were perceived as non-integrated.
Furthermore, the Swiss youth mobilized integration criteria in a normative way: they
postulated that ‘foreigners’ – if they want to live in Switzerland and gain recognition – have
to (1) learn and speak the local language, (2) adapt to typical Swiss social behaviour and
order, (3) establish social networks with Swiss people and (4) be loyal to Switzerland. The
following analysis depicts the daily relevance of these boundary-making narratives and
practices among students along these four dimensions, through which the students revealed a
general suspicion that ‘some foreigners’ are not willing to integrate and reproduced the
‘Swiss-foreigner’ boundary.
In doing so, the youth selectively focused on those who did not, in their view, fulfil these
criteria, with immigrants from former Yugoslavian states particularly likely to be classified as
‘foreigners’. In fact, Kosovo-Albanians represented the figure of the ‘immigrant with
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integration deficits’, whereas immigrants from the European Union were perceived as better
integrated. The young people constructed a hierarchy around foreigners according to which
the ‘ethnic differences’ of those on the bottom of the hierarchy were interpreted as a problem
for integration. Moreover, the ‘ethnic differences’ were related to religion, since Kosovo-
Albanians were perceived as Muslims,4 although most of them were Catholic. What made the
children of immigrants from Kosovo more vulnerable to being classified as ‘foreigners’ was
that the Swiss state stopped recruiting this population as labour migrants during the wars in
the Balkans in the 1990s and mobilized discourses of ‘cultural difference’ to legitimize this
decision (Duemmler et al. 2010). Since then, Kosovo-Albanians are one of the most
stigmatized groups in Switzerland, and I have shown elsewhere how this ethnic boundary
manifested itself in the schools (ibid.). However, the boundary work against ‘foreigners’ is
not only about particular ethnic or religious categories. The analysis will show that the Swiss
students’ integration criteria reflect general ideas implemented in the current civic-integration
and former assimilationist policies.
Focus on ‘language’
When speaking spontaneously about integration, ‘foreigners’ in general and three Kosovo-
Albanian girls in her class in particular, Sabrina (Swiss) stated during an interview:
Sabrina: People have to integrate. I think this is their business. I mean, I don’t say, ‘Ah a
foreigner! I have nothing to do with them’. I can speak to them. But if he or she doesn’t really
speak or want to learn German or Swiss-German, well, they have to integrate themselves.
Interviewer: But the three [Kosovo-Albanian] girls speak Swiss-German?
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Sabrina: Yes. But they also often speak Albanian. And you can hear them and then you think
they are just right for each other. It always brings you together... and so they became friends.
And then, sorry, but they are really the foreigners, Albanians, also because they speak
Albanian.
Sabrina stresses that foreigners have to integrate, which means that they should not only learn
but also speak the local language in public. By using the example of three Kosovo-Albanian
girls, she argues that this does not always happen and thus calls them ‘the foreigners’,
although the girls are able to speak (Swiss)-German perfectly. For Sabrina, speaking the
language of the host society in public signifies that a person wants to be part of that society,
while not speaking it signifies unwillingness to integrate. Sabrina was not the only student in
her class to articulate this view. Other young women one day convinced the teacher to forbid
speaking Albanian during lessons and breaks. They argued that the three girls could make fun
of them when speaking Albanian. This example shows that students (and even teachers) do
not agree with the new civic-integration requirements, according to which immigrants must
simply be able to speak a national language to live autonomously. Their norms and related
practices go further and reflect the heritage of the assimilation paradigm, since the
characteristics of the host society should be the pivotal reference point for immigrants; i.e.
Swiss-German and not the mother tongue should be spoken in public.
What is remarkable is that the current integration principles of Lucerne and the education
policy at the federal level encourage the acquisition and practice of the ‘mother tongue’
among first- and second-generation immigrant youth (Regierungsrat Luzern 2001, 23).
According to the civic-integration paradigm, being able to speak several languages is
perceived as enriching for Swiss society and as helpful in learning further languages.
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However, this study demonstrates that this principle has not been accepted in everyday school
life because of resistance among students and teachers (Allemann-Ghionda 2002, 409).
Focus on ‘social behaviour and order’
One morning, I brought croissants for the students. Immediately, Admir, Edi [second-
generation immigrants from Montenegro and Kosovo, respectively] and Stefan [Swiss]
grabbed one bag with croissants and ran out of the classroom. The rest of the class followed,
and we all sat down in the entry hall. At the end of the break, Cornelia [Swiss] explained to
me in a private conversation why she perceived Admir and Edi to be ‘typical foreigners’ – a
point that had remained unclear in an interview conducted a week before. She explained that
they were not ‘reserved’, unlike Swiss people in general, since they had fallen on the
croissants as if they were famished, and they ate the two left-over croissants instead of
sharing them with the rest of the class.
Cornelia’s judgment about Admir and Edi is another example of the boundary work against
‘foreigners’: she focused on ‘deviant social behaviour’. In her view, both young men could be
characterized as ‘foreigners’ because they lacked the ‘reserved mentality typical of Swiss
people’. Although Stefan (Swiss) was part of the group that had grabbed the croissants,
Cornelia only interpreted Admir and Edi’s forthright character in ‘ethnic terms’ and declared
them to be ‘ethnic others’. Their forthright character was perceived as a deviation from Swiss
social norms, which in turn legitimized Cornelia’s drawing a boundary against them and
socially distancing herself from them – as she also declared during the interview.
Other students also referred to the idea that ‘foreigners’ often do not respect social
behavioural norms. They regularly accused them of being disrespectful in public, i.e. insulting
people. In this regard, the Lucerne train station was mentioned often. However, most
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examples that the students cited stemmed from friends. When focusing on deviance from
social norms and order, the students again went beyond the principles present in the current
civic-integration policy, which simply stresses respect for the Constitution and Swiss law and
order.
The idea that a ‘forthright’ character differs from or should adapt to the ‘Swiss reserved
mentality’ reflects the heritage of the former assimilation paradigm that builds on
essentialised assumptions about ethnicity and culture. Ethnic groups are seen as substantial
entities; perceived as if they were internally homogenous (i.e. exhibiting a specific mentality
or behaviour) and externally bounded groups (Brubaker 2009, 28). These assumptions have
dominated immigration-policy discourses in Switzerland for a long time: during the 1960s,
‘sharp cultural differences’ were seen as a barrier to assimilation and a danger to social
cohesion (Niederberger 2004, 70); during the 1990s, this argument was used to legitimize
ceasing labour force recruitment from the then-Yugoslavia (Dahinden 2011); and today the
Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and various media sources contribute to the belief in
‘insurmountable cultural differences’ (Skenderovic 2008).
This rhetoric of exclusion based on culturalised and essentialised perceptions of ‘foreigners’
initiated a scientific debate regarding whether this attitude towards diversity must be
understood as a new form of cultural racism or as possessing its own logic (Grillo 2003).
Whatever the final answer, the rhetoric builds not only on racist ideas of
superiority/inferiority but also constructs a ‘radical opposition between nationals and
immigrants… informed by a reified notion of bounded and distinct, localized national-cultural
identity and heritage that is employed to rationalize the call for restrictive immigration policy’
(Stolcke 1995, 1).
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Focus on ‘community building’
The Swiss youth in the study referred to another dimension to underline the argument that
immigrants fail to integrate. They criticized network and community building among
immigrants. These activities were interpreted as a sign that ‘foreigners’ voluntarily separate
from the Swiss. This view can be illustrated by Sabrina’s statement:
Some come to Switzerland and integrate and then they are perceived as integrated by the
Swiss. Some come to Switzerland and simply continue to live like before. And you can see this.
They form groups, foreigners; foreigners are together, and on the other side there are the
Swiss. It is often like that. I know few people who really have integrated and really speak
Swiss-German and really have Swiss friends… You can see this for example in our class:
Elma, Kumrije and Dorina [the three Kosovo-Albanian girls]. You can easily see this on the
street, too. They are always together.
This example highlights how the three Kosovo-Albanian girls in the class were again
classified as ‘foreigners’ because they spent most of their time together and formed a group.
This behaviour was interpreted as a voluntary withdrawal from the class and Swiss society.
What is remarkable is that there were several groups in the class that seldom interacted. Most
of the students argued during interviews that this was ‘normal’ because the class was quite
large. However, some students – like Sabrina – perceived the group formation of the three
Kosovo-Albanian girls as evidence that immigrants do not want to integrate, whereas the
other group formations were not criticized. Moreover, group formation among immigrants
(e.g. Edi and Admir) was usually interpreted in cultural terms, since students assumed a
common religion, nationality and/or language as the main driver of community and network
building. Yet Edi (a Catholic from Kosovo who spoke Albanian) and Admir (a Muslim whose
parents came from Montenegro and who spoke Bosnian) had different religions, nationalities
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18
and languages – the only commonality was that they had parents from the former Yugoslavia.
Nevertheless, classmates argued during interviews that cultural and religious proximity had
motivated the young men to form a group. The Swiss students seldom referred to the
possibility that group formation among immigrants could be the result of negative experiences
and rejection by the Swiss majority.
This fear of separate ethnic communities has become dominant in many European societies
during the last decade and has cumulated in the notion of ‘parallel societies’ (Schiffauer
2008). It already informed the former Swiss assimilation policy, according to which
assimilation depended on immigrants’ willingness and ability to integrate (Niederberger 2004,
56). In Lucerne, this discourse re-emerged in the early 2000s in the cantonal integration
guidelines, which stated that immigrant neighbourhoods, ethno-national consciousness and
divisions within society should be avoided because they might ‘provoke conflicts’ and
‘decrease the acceptance of immigration’ (Regierungsrat Luzern 2001, 20).
Focus on ‘loyalty’
The Swiss youth referred to a fourth dimension to legitimize their boundary work against
‘foreigners’. They regularly focused on situations in which immigrants were – in their view –
disloyal to Switzerland. Not being loyal to or appreciative of the host population was also
seen as a deviation from the integration norm. This topic was important, as many youths
regularly got upset if ‘foreigners’ criticized the Swiss or felt themselves superior. The
following quotation shows how two young women reacted when I asked them during an
interview what they thought about jokes about Switzerland and whether it matters who tells
them.
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Cornelia: Well, it is okay. But it depends on who is telling the joke and how. If he is really
serious I get very angry. I can’t stand it if a non-Swiss says ‘The Swiss are sons of bitches’.
[Luisa: Yes!] I can’t bear this because.
Luisa: Because he is coming to Switzerland, he is here.
Interviewer: What do you mean?
Luisa: He should go back. And so I often say: ‘Get lost!’ [Cornelia: Yes!]
This example illustrates that ‘foreigners’ are expected to be grateful and loyal to the Swiss,
and that any disrespect of this norm legitimizes their misrecognition and exclusion. In a
similar way, Sabine criticized her German workplace colleagues, who would always act as
‘smart-asses’ and claim ‘to work better than the Swiss’. Sabine argued during the interview
that if immigrants accept jobs in Switzerland, they have to be grateful and uncritical towards
the Swiss. What is remarkable is that such arguments reflect the idea that immigrants are
‘guests’ – or at least not equal inhabitants – who should recognize the generosity of their hosts
in allowing them to live and work in their territory. The current civic-integration paradigm is
not based on such reasoning. However, the former assimilation policy already perceived
‘feelings of superiority’ among immigrants as a problem because ‘Swiss people’ could feel
threatened (Niederberger 2004, 70).
In the examples above, the young people did not only focus on Kosovo-Albanians who were
the ‘typical foreigners lacking social and cultural integration’. With regard to loyalty, ‘all
foreigners’ were equally perceived as a potential threat to the claimed superior position of
‘Swiss people’, indicating that the boundary is not completely blurred for immigrants.
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These examples highlight how the Swiss youth in this study classified the supposedly non-
integrated first- and second-generation immigrants in their class as ‘foreigners’. By drawing
on ideas similar to those of the current civic-integration and past assimilation paradigms, they
legitimized not only the ‘Swiss-foreigner’ boundary, but also a power relation: they argued
that the Swiss language, social order, population and society should be the main reference
points for immigrants if they want to be recognized as integrated, or, in other words,
perceived as having individually crossed the boundary. In order to maintain this power
relation, the Swiss youth continuously focused on any kind of deviation from the integration
norm – a strategy already well described in Elias and Scotson’s ([1965] 1994) seminal study.
The focus on deviance from the integration criteria legitimized a stigma so that immigrants
appeared in a bad light, i.e. not willing to integrate. This boundary-making was further
legitimized by declaring that immigrants are responsible for their stigma: if they refused to
speak Swiss-German in public, socialize with Swiss people, behave respectfully and be loyal,
they could not expect to be recognized as integrated.
Strategies to counteract the boundary
Since boundary-making processes unfold in concrete situations, actors also have the
possibility of negotiating boundaries. Depending on the situation, the Swiss students – indeed,
often the very same students – not only reproduced and legitimized the ‘Swiss-foreigner’
boundary, but also mobilized four kinds of narratives that aimed to transform this boundary,
albeit ambivalently. Nevertheless, the narratives indicate that the boundary is not completely
‘bright’, hierarchical and impermeable.
The first narrative celebrated diversity as enriching for social life and questioned the unequal
status hierarchy of the categories (Wimmer 2008). Since many young Swiss had one
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21
immigrant parent and grandparents, the students were often familiar with other languages or
the home countries of their (grand)parents. Like Johannes, who openly introduced himself as
‘mixed race’ to the researchers (grandparents from Germany, Poland, Slovenia and Hungary),
they were often proud of this heritage and stated that this mixing makes people more
interesting. Adopting such narratives, the Swiss students promoted a discourse, dominant
since the 1990s, that reflects the central idea of the civic-integration paradigm: immigrants
should not completely adapt to Swiss culture because their cultural particularities are
enriching.
The second narrative promoted tolerance and respect towards immigrants and distance from
people who were thought to discriminate against them – values that are promoted by the civic-
integration paradigm. It was thus common for students to announce that they were open-
minded towards ‘foreigners’ and that it was important for them to transfer this attitude to their
future children. One day, one class watched the film The Swissmakers, which criticizes in a
humoristic way the prejudices against immigrants from Italy and Yugoslavia in the 1970s.
Notably, the students (Cornelia and Luisa were among them) got heated up over the former
prejudices (e.g. listening to loud music was presented as typical for immigrants) and the Swiss
population’s intolerance towards unfamiliar habits (e.g. the use of uncommon trash bags).
However, they did not question current prejudices about ‘foreigners’ (e.g. unwilling to
integrate) or intolerance (e.g. towards a ‘forthright character’). Although they were sensitive
to stigmatization, the students were not aware of the stigmatizing effects of their own
boundary-making narratives and practices.
A third narrative was to contest clear-cut differences between ‘Swiss people’ and ‘foreigners’
and draw instead on universal values (e.g. humanity). The students argued, for instance, that
being Swiss or a foreigner does not at all matter, since ‘we are all human beings’. Some
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students also practiced this kind of boundary blurring, since they had close immigrant friends
or partners. They often held that affections like love and friendship do not depend on ethno-
national origin, but on sympathy. Nevertheless, I have shown elsewhere that the social
networks of those young people were homogenous in terms of ethnic and religious origin
(Duemmler and Moret, 2009). In fact, the boundary was ‘in theory’ declared to be ‘blurred’,
but it remained clear ‘in practice’.
The fourth narrative was to recognize boundary crossings among individual immigrants. Here
the Swiss youth referred to individuals whom they characterized as ‘Swiss’ even though they
(or their parents) were immigrants. Rodriquez, for instance, was perceived as ‘Swiss’, and all
interviewed classmates argued that he spent most of his time in class with other Swiss people,
behaved like ‘a Swiss’ and did not primarily identify with Brazil (his country of origin). Such
arguments show that the boundary was a priori ‘permeable’ – at least for some individuals.
Even if these narratives existed, the young people lacked the capacity or will to rigorously
dissolve the boundary. Although the narratives questioned the boundary by blurring it,
promoting equality, celebrating diversity or emphasizing that it could be crossed, the students
never questioned the integration paradigm. The idea that immigrants have to make efforts to
integrate if they want to be recognized remained unchallenged, and so the Swiss youth did not
question the basic element in the boundary-making process. This does not come as a surprise,
since the civic-integration paradigm encompasses in a similarly ambivalent way the idea that
diversity is enriching and that immigrants must make efforts to integrate.
Conclusion
In light of the emergence of civic-integration requirements in various European countries, this
paper – based on an ethnographic study of Swiss students – has depicted how the civic-
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integration paradigm resonates in everyday life. By examining how symbolic boundary
processes define how immigrants can become recognized societal members, I have shown
how ideas about integration have become an integral part of the ‘Swiss-foreigner’ boundary.
This boundary is neither ‘blurred’ nor ‘bright’ (Alba 2005); rather, there are specified criteria
(i.e. speak the local language, stick to social norms, maintain relationships and be loyal to
Swiss people) that, in the view of the young people, determine how immigrants can cross the
boundary and be recognized as ‘Swiss’. A priori, this boundary is defined as permeable if
immigrants make efforts to integrate. However, the Swiss students in the study constantly
focused on integration deficits among immigrants, which left doubts as to whether everyone,
and in particular those with ancestors from Kosovo, had an equal chance of crossing the
‘Swiss-foreigner’ boundary.
In fact, this everyday logic unfolded exclusionary side-effects in the educational setting. The
Swiss youth established a power relation (Elias and Scotson [1965] 1994) through the
propagation of a norm – that ‘foreigners’ have to make the effort to integrate – and the
propagation of a stigma – that ‘foreigners’ are often unwilling or unable to do so. Thus, this
study goes beyond the current political science studies on the emerging civic-integration
policies. In the existing literature, the exclusionary side-effects of the paradigm have been
studied in terms of the political measures that exclude or discriminate against those who do
not fulfil integration requirements (Joppke 2007). By focusing on everyday ideas about
integration, this study has demonstrated that exclusion also operates through a general
suspicion that immigrants are not willing to integrate. As the empirical study has shown,
minor ‘deviances’ are sufficient to exclude ‘foreigners’ from the category ‘Swiss’.
Although inclusionary strategies and narratives that aimed to blur, open and re-evaluate the
‘Swiss-foreigner’ boundary did exist, the young people did not question that ‘foreigners’ have
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to make the effort to adapt to the national characteristics of Swiss society. In this way, the
young people incorporate the ambivalent logic of the civic-integration paradigm, oscillating
between inclusion – respecting diversity – and exclusion – problematizing integration deficits.
Remarkably, students in the academic schools did not differ in their boundary work from
those in vocational schools, although they were more subtle.
When studying the resonance of the current civic-integration paradigm in everyday life, the
heritage of the former assimilation paradigm regularly reappeared. The Swiss students did not
simply wish that immigrants would adopt important characteristics of the host society in order
to live autonomously and self-sufficiently; instead, they often felt uncomfortable with the
cultural diversity of some immigrant groups altogether. As such, this study indicates that an
institutional heritage that is anchored in everyday practices and narratives might not erode
quickly, even though new policies are introduced.
This study opens up at least two further research agendas. First, it would be fruitful to
examine from a comparative perspective how the new civic-integration paradigm resonates in
everyday life in different historical, social and cultural contexts. Such a comparative
perspective could deepen our knowledge as to whether – as Joppke (2007) argued with regard
to immigration policies in France, Germany and the Netherlands – national (or local) models
of incorporating immigrants have become obsolete, or whether the everyday narratives and
practices are still anchored in the institutional legacies of former national (or local) models.
Besides schools, public administrations that are in charge of immigrants’ integration could
also be interesting sites to study how integration policies are applied in everyday life. Second,
it would be equally important to focus on the narratives, practices and possible counter-
strategies among immigrants who are concerned about civic-integration policies or discourses
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(Cederberg 2013). Immigrants cannot be perceived as passive victims of exclusionary
everyday narratives or practices, but as active actors struggling for social recognition.
Acknowledgments
The study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (NRP 58). I thank Joëlle
Moret and Joanna Menet, who collaborated in the project and critically commented on an
earlier draft of this article. I also thank Janine Dahinden (supervisor of the project and my
PhD thesis), Richard Alba, Karin Schittenhelm and Monika Salzbrunn, who commented as
jury of my PhD thesis on a first draft of this paper. Finally, I thank the editor and the
anonymous referees for helpful comments.
1 ‘Swiss people’ and ‘foreigners’ are not used as analytical categories; the aim is to reconstruct their (emic)
meaning in school life.
2 This free circulation has been questioned with the acceptance of the initiative ‘Against mass immigration’ (8
February 2014) which has not yet been implemented.
3 Janine Dahinden (University of Neuchâtel) directed the project ‘Ethnicity and religion: What practices,
identities and boundaries? A study among young adults’.
4 Muslims suffer from a similar hostile context, which culminated in the vote over the ban on the construction of
minarets in 2009, and religious boundary-making was also present in the schools (Duemmler 2015).
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KERSTIN DUEMMLER is Senior Researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational
Education and Training (SFIVET).
ADDRESS: SFIVET, CP 192, CH-1000 Lausanne 16 Malley,
Email: kerstin.duemmler@sfivet.swiss
