Young People Feeling Valued and Safe In Mono - and Multi-Ethnic Australian Communities

The paper explores if young people growing up in mono-ethnic regional or in multi-ethnic urban communities present different experiences in feeling valued and safe in the community. The paper argues from Bourdieu’s (1978, 1984) habitus discourse that the social and cultural environment influence the community setting and young people’s feelings of being supported by friends, their social networks, and trust in people. The mono-ethnic young people live in regional communities dominated by generations of Anglo-Australian heritage and traditions. While the multi-ethnic young people live in ethnically diverse urban communities in Western and South Western Sydney with it’s intermix of young people from Arabic and Middle Eastern, Pacific Island and Asian heritage. The young people in the mono-and multi-ethnic communities are all aged between 13 and 21 years and live with their families. The research shows that the urban young people living in multi-ethnic communities feel more valued by friends and they have more positive experiences about community living. They feel more supported by friends, but also by their extended family, a contributing circumstance for them to feel more secure in the community, then what the mono-ethnic regional young people expressed.