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Purpose – With political tensions surrounding migrants in post-9/11 Western societies, scholarship on second-generation immigrants has surged. This study explores the narratives of second-generation Iranian-Dutch women, a previously unstudied group, in relation to their positionality regarding identity and belonging.

Methodology/Approach – By combining focus group discussions with in-depth individual interviews, we explored the narratives of 13 second-generation Iranian-Dutch women. Our focus was on their senses of belonging, cultural identities and lived experiences as they navigated between Dutch society and their parents’ complicated heritage, against the backdrop of the post-9/11 world.

Findings – Although these women are perfectly ‘integrated’, they are still frequently approached and labelled as ‘foreigners’ in society, which negatively impacts their sense of belonging in Dutch society. However, our participants navigated contradicting parental and societal expectations, finding new ways to belong and fashioning cultural identities in multiplicity.

Originality/Value of the Paper – To our knowledge, the specific experiences of second-generation Iranian-Dutch migrants have received no scholarly attention. Our findings further the understanding on relevant second-generation themes such as the immigrant bargain, solidarity between different ethnic minority groups, and new ways of belonging.

Educational pressure groups, in the form of national bodies pushing a particular view which has nothing directly to do with politics, religion or trades unionism, seem to be a new phenomenon in Britain. Their arrival has to do with the peculiar federal structure of our education system, its increasing diversity, the increasing interest that individuals and groups of all sorts are taking in it, the recognition that it is crucially linked to both personal belief and group ideology, and its long march of cost. In this perspective such varied bodies as the Comprehensive Schools Committee, the Careers Research Advisory Centre, the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment, and the Advisory Centre for Education, may each give an insight into causes and effects.