Abstract (eng)
The year 2015 marked a decisive turning point for the integration policies of numerous European countries. During the so-called refugee crisis, more than one million people - especially from the war-torn regions of Syria and Afghanistan - came to Europe seeking protection. Most of the refugees sought asylum in Germany. Regarding per capita figures, Sweden and Austria were most affected by asylum migration. In subsequent years, asylum application numbers remained high in the three countries mentioned, albeit with varying fluctuations. For the respective national integration policies, the measures and resources offered had to be expanded to integrate the new arrivals into the host society. The master's thesis compares the integration policies of Austria, Germany, and Sweden concerning the focus on values. The temporal framework of the thesis is the mentioned developments in 2015 and their aftermath. The research question aims to determine the significance of the communication of values in the respective national integration policies. This is as follows: "What significance is attributed to "cultural integration" according to Esser (2004) in the case of value mediation in the nation-state integration policies of the countries Austria, Germany, and Sweden since the flight movement from 2015 to 2021?". For this purpose, the distinction of Hartmut Esser's four dimensions of integration (cultural, structural, social, emotional) is referenced, which serves as the basis for document analysis of authoritative national strategy papers and laws of the countries under study. Using a deductive-inductive procedure, the contents of the documents are assigned to the categories of the integration dimensions. It is found that the issue of values is relevant overall in the context of cultural integration of immigrants, although to a different extent in each country. This corresponds to the Europe-wide trend of civic integration identified by Christian Joppke, according to which the obligatory character of integration measures is increasing as a standard feature in developing national integration policies. Within the framework of these obligatory measures, the communication of values plays an important role.