De Marokkanenpaniek; een geïntegreerde morele paniekbenadering van het stigma ‘Marokkaan’ in Nederland

Moroccan Dutch are since the nineties increasingly successful in domains such as education, the labour and housing. Despite these positive developments they still experience a negative group image, based on a small group that stand out in societal problems and crime. This dissertation studies the negative social reactions to 'Moroccans' and the impact of these societal reactions on various Moroccan-Dutch adolescents in the Netherlands through a labeling theory perspective.

From the 'classical moral panic theory' of Stanley Cohen and Jock Young, Bouabid investigates three societal reactions to 'Moroccans' in the Netherlands through a qualitative document analysis of Dutch media discourse. He answers questions such as how are 'Moroccans' discussed in the media discourse, how are they reacted to and which actors play an important role in these societal reactions? This dissertation, on the other hand, examines how Moroccan-Dutch young men deal with these negative societal reactions to 'Moroccans' in their daily lives, through open interviews and (participatory) observations. How do these negative social reactions effect their daily lives and how do they cope with these labeling processes?

Finally, a theoretical and empirical re-evaluation of moral panic theory in this dissertation, leads to the development of the more holistic 'integrated moral panic theory' with which other contemporary moral panic can be understood and explained.