The study of policy feedback tries to understand how policies restructure politics in ways that shape and limit subsequent policy processes (Jordan & Matt 2014). In this paper we analyze policy feedback effects of policies that seek to facilitate the integration of migrant children recently arrived into the host educational system. In Europe these programmes have adopted one of three ideal-types with different degrees of special treatment: parallel or withdrawal, immersion in the mainstream class, or some combination of the former. This paper compares the cases of Rotterdam and Barcelona, looking them throughout time. Using in-depth interviews with key actors and policy analysis of relevant documents the paper analyzes the dynamics of change or inertias set in motion by early reception policies in each of these cities. Comparing the cases of Rotterdam and Barcelona allows us to analyze one case of positive feedback that lock previous policies in place, and another of negative feedback which destabilise them. The findings show that while in Rotterdam, the early reception policy developed in the 1980s has produced a positive feedback and a continuity, in Barcelona the policy launched in the 1990s has paved the way for a radical policy change in the 2000s.
