ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the impact of changes in legislation on immigrants and practitioners in adult education. Since the 1990s, Dutch integration policy has shifted from being fairly foreigner-friendly to becoming more restrictive. The chapter explains the overview of the history of the Civic Integration legislation in the Netherlands. Ability in the Dutch language is considered the most important feature of being a Dutch citizen. Preservation of one's first language and culture was part of the official policy, and considered just, because until then guest workers were expected ultimately to return to their home countries. While practitioners and experts in the adult education field have been working very hard for the last twenty years to professionalise teachers and to improve integration of migrants in society, the Dutch government decided in favour of, in our eyes, an extremely restrictive integration policy for unschooled and low-educated migrants.
