This paper discusses migration and social citizenship in the light of new forms of social exclusion of new ethnic minorities in Europe. The author claims that Europe risks developing multiculturalism that is separate from social citizenship . This is related to a kind of cultural backlash and the re-emergence of an interest in cultural “deviancy” that is supposed to mark new ethnic minorities, particularly in terms of value systems and gender. Diversity is thus represented as differences between “foreign cultures” and “our” society, something that is expressed in popular, political and even academic rhetoric. This kind of culturalism in research and politics veils essential social problems and jeopardises efforts being made to extend inclusive social citizenship to immigrants and their children. The author makes links between emerging problems of cultural reductionism and contemporary neoliberal politics and the weakening of the welfare state. The empirical arguments are confined to conditions in Sweden, which are then compared to conditions in the other Nordic countries and the EU.