This dissertation explores how young refugees (ages 12–23) develop and adapt their language strategies during their participation and integration trajectories from their stay in Dutch asylum seekers centres through living in Dutch society for several years. The language strategies – (Dutch) language learning, language choices, and multilingual (co-)creations – of young refugees in the Netherlands have so far remained unexamined, even though integration studies with migrants have revealed a “doubleness” of Dutch language learning (Eijberts and Ghorashi, 2017) that creates experiences of inclusion and exclusion. This doubleness is the language component of what previous researchers have described as an “integration paradox” (e.g. Buijs et al., 2016). Despite the findings of these studies, Dutch integration policy over the last two decades has been putting increasing importance on Dutch language learning for participation and integration in Dutch society and for building connections with Dutch natives (Eijberts and Ghorashi, 2017). And the growing number of Dutch government-commissioned (mostly quantitative) integration studies in recent years have focused merely on specific outcomes of the current integration policy by mostly using quantitative data. Therefore, they provide limited insights into participants’ own experiences with integration and how it intersects with the knowledge and practice of languages. Despite the greatly increased numbers of young refugees in the country in recent years, none of these studies have asked for their perspectives on if and how learning the Dutch language has actually helped them integrate with Dutch natives and Dutch society. The relevance of exploring the under-researched language strategies of young refugees in particular has been shown by sociolinguistic studies’ growing attention on young migrants’ creativity in performing “brokerage” activities for their parents, who often do not know the society’s dominant language (e.g. Weisskirch and Alatorre, 2002; Love and Burial, ...