1.	Multicultural society

2.	What do we mean by cultures?

3.	Dutch society

4.	The original Dutch culture

5.	Conclusion

"This shows that legally the Dutch society is prepared for the multicultural society. The reality can often be different. As mentioned in the Phalet, Lotringen and Entzinger survey , more than half of the minority young people who took part in the survey sometimes face discrimination with another 15 % experiencing it frequently. Even though this is a subjective evaluation of a relatively small sample of young people , the assessment of the Dutch respondents with similar background was similar (as to the feeling of their peers being discriminated). Bendrif and Haney also describe cases when Muslim women were discriminated against because of the visual element of their religion – the headscarf . These examples seem to prove that while formally confirming to the rules of multicultural society, the situation in the real-life Netherlands is still far from reaching the ideal.
The original (Dutch) culture of Living-Apart-Together could have been successful in the case of immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s but with the rising numbers of immigrants and their growing diversification, closing eyes is no longer useful. But how easy/difficult is it to move between cultures? From the given texts and the movie, we can assume that it is possible. Examples of men and women partly or fully integrated (i. e. having Dutch friends, working in Dutch majority environment, following the “Western” values) into Dutch society are present. Still, these are individual decisions, often costing those regarded a high price – their families feeling disgraced, the new culture not fully accepting them while they no longer belong to their original culture. These could be the reasons, why the minority group members are not keen on assimilation/integration. The SCP research has shown that the Surinamese and Antilleans are more likely than the Turks and Moroccans to cross these boundaries and are for example more likely to join a mixed marriage. Still, the minorities prefer to socialise within their culture groups. Little is known about Dutch people who e. g. have converted to Islam and thus joined a different culture. In the Bendrif and Haney essay, an example of a Dutch Muslim convert Samia is given, which doesn´t reveal anything about the way she feels in her new culture, but points out the negative aspect of how her original culture treats her in connection with the visualisation of her current culture (her wearing a headscarf).
Besides the private sphere, there is certainly a possibility to interact in schools and jobs. As there are not many Islamic schools available, most Muslim pupils go to public school, some to private schools . Here they not only learn together with their Dutch-origin peers, they often learn about Christian values and habits. The importance of education is stressed in the Phalet, Lotringen and Entzinger report which concludes that the level of education has direct impact on the level of tolerance at both sides. This also remarkably influences the situation at the job market, not only concerning job opportunities but also “widening of one´s social horizon”. The situation is the most visible in case of second generation female minority members . On the other hand, lower education level could also be the explanation for higher unemployment rate among minorities – this also applies to low-educated native Dutch. Discrimination can be hard to prove in this area, except for cases described by different surveys such as by Bendrif and Haney on the issues of headscarf. As for small businesses which are a common way of obtaining income among minority groups, these are often run in the areas densely populated by minorities and despite being available to native Dutch as well, they are mostly used by the minorities themselves."