This article demonstrates a way to qualify the study of pedagogy conceived of as an ambiguous welfare state phenomenon. Thus, a critical analysis of the Western state philosophy, termed ‘integrationism’, is conducted. Using Foucault’s historical-political methodology, Emile Durkheim’s organic-sociological methodology and the welfare state philosophy of Gunnar and Alva Myrdal are analyzed. Hence, the emergence of ‘integrationism’ and its sophisticated circular thinking, depicting society as an integrated whole, is exposed. Consequently, the rational and technocratic epistemology of ‘integrationism’, and the normalization-strategy vis-à-vis the individual that goes with it, becomes accessible to critical debate regarding which citizens the welfare state recognizes as legitimate