Rethinking Integration for the Age of Superdiversity: How to Adapt Public Services?

Whilst immigrant integration policies at the European and national levels have sought to help migrants thrive, in reality these newcomers and their children still struggle to achieve success in education, employment, and housing. At least part of the failure of these integration policies is due to the lack of whole-of-government coordination on how to meet the needs of a diverse and mobile population. Even as the mainstreaming of integration into broader services has gained traction, a coordinated approach still remains elusive, and often the result is continued inequality and socioeconomic disadvantage for migrants and ethnic minorities.

This Migration Policy Institute Europe public discussion explores how a coordinated approach to integration may create more effective and inclusive approaches to diversity across the policy-making spectrum. Presenters examine how national governments and the European Union can better support local authorities dealing with high population turnover (particularly in schools and housing), how a greater awareness and increased representation of diversity can more effectively be embedded in all public services, and how the European Union can incorporate the lessons learned at the local, regional, and national levels so that European funding streams are working, in a complementary fashion, towards the same goals. The discussion also covers the findings of the UPSTREAM project, a multicountry study funded by the European Integration Fund that looks at the practice of mainstreaming in early childhood education, multilingual classrooms, antiracism, and equality strategies, and neighbourhood and housing policy.