This paper explores the dominant approach to education of ethnic minorities in Denmark. Using the concept of hegemony and the political‐science distinction between monocultural and multicultural positions as approaches towards a situation of increasing linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity, the paper shows how a monocultural approach has become hegemonic in policy initiatives and legal documents. This hegemony is achieved by understanding ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversions from established norms in terms of deprivation. In this way, educational institutions and ‘majority society’ as such are protected from criticism and structural changes towards multiculturalism and the recognition of the linguistic and cultural rights of minority groups. Alternative and competing positions exist in the research literature in the field, but this literature has been excluded from the level of policy and public administration.