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AbstractThis article explores the linguistic strategies of young refugees (ages 12–23) in the Netherlands. The study takes place within a societal context in which new migrants and refugees are increasingly pressured to learn Dutch as key to their integration, but English is becoming more and more dominant, and in which learning Dutch is not considered necessary for other newcomer groups such as exchange students and expats. It starts from a puzzling finding in participants' use of languages within their personal networks (collected 2016–18): their decreasing use of Dutch and increasing use of English while integrating into Dutch society. Participants' 'network stories' reveal that they shifted from Dutch to English to distance themselves from the identities ascribed to them by the Dutch dominant negative discourse and to imagine their futures and belonging in more inclusive environments.

This innovative mixed methods network study with young refugees in the Netherlands disproves integration policy assumptions that language acquisition is key to social integration and that social integration is about gradually increasing contact with native citizens, or when integration is lacking, about limiting contact to one's own ethnic group. The study connects the research approaches of government-commissioned quantitative integration studies, which generally reflect the above assumptions, and qualitative studies with migrants, which reveal an 'integration paradox' and a 'doubleness' of language acquisition generating both inclusion and exclusion. First, it includes the use of languages and countries of origin in ego network data to examine the relationship between language acquisition and social integration. These network data show that participants speak Dutch with most of the diverse non-Dutch people in their networks and have relatively few connections with Dutch natives. Second, to help us understand these findings, participants were asked to share their 'network stories'. These stories place the network findings within the context of contradictory asylum and integration policies and negative discourse, thereby revealing that with regard to learning Dutch, participants are caught not in a paradox but in an aporia: damned if they do, damned if they don't.