Education, governance and frames of political membership: migrant `integration` policy as discourse in the Swiss case within Europe

This study looks at Switzerland as an example of Western-European nation states` strategic
efforts to create migrant `integration` agendas, which attempt the convergence of different,
largely statist economic interests. According to the Swiss Federal Government`s overarching
agenda, education is a key arena for advancement of the `integration` of migrants in Swiss
systems and society. I explore whether this statist strategy conceals and contains pre-existing
power relations in relation to definitions of the ‘political membership’ of migrants. This study
understands public policy as a carrier of shared ideas and ideologies transgressing national
borders. It attempts to map the socio-political dimensions of policy discourses. ‘Dominant`
discourses of neo-liberalism and New Public Management in education policy reform in
Switzerland in 2008 are examined. The examination connects arguments related to `soft`
governance in processes of Europeanisation and the emergence of a European shared space of
education - in which Switzerland positions itself in particular ways - as policy through
governance. It explores how this policy is referenced in a national normative context. I
investigate the use of education standards drawn from comparative studies, such as the
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and how these are related to the
migrant `integration` mandate of the Swiss Federal government and the Canton of Zurich
education authorities specifically for education agenda-setting. The study engages with the
`problematisation` of migrants in Swiss education discourses, (re-) triggering a national
response which constructs, diffuses and institutionalises shared ideas of European policies
within the logic of pre-existing normative ideologies about `migrants`, nation-building,
`national identity`, `culture` and norms of political membership.