Growing up in a multicultural society
How do young people living in New Zealand’s most diverse communities navigate daily encounters with difference, forge their citizenship identities and participate in civic life?
With Auckland now the 4th most diverse city in the world, these are the questions Victoria University’s Dr Bronwyn Wood is hoping to answer in her Marsden-funded research.
“I’m talking to young people from ages 14 – 18 who are from some of Auckland’s most diverse communities and I’m giving them cameras and asking them to show what it’s like to grow up in these communities. So far there is a really warm and positive feeling from these students about being part of a culturally diverse community,” says Dr Wood.
“They enjoy what they learn—the new languages and food and the experiences that they gain from other people in a cross-cultural environment,” she says.
Because of the sensitivity around asking young people to talk to her about issues like racism and belonging, Dr Wood asked the students to interview each other and create posters to illustrate those discussions.
Another method she employed was the use of a secret box. “At the very end I asked the students to write down anything they felt they couldn’t say out loud and put it in the secret box. It was completely anonymous,” she says. “About 80% of the students said they liked being part of this multicultural community and wanted to know why I was making it an issue.”
Rubbing shoulders daily with diversity wasn’t without its issues. It was apparent that some students felt more valued than others and that intercultural relations weren’t always smooth. As one student put it: ‘I feel like it’s a bit of a challenge having so many ethnicities in one small place as it is hard to keep up with so many different ways of how things are done!’
With three more schools still to visit Dr Wood says the data is far from complete, but her initial findings make it clear that the search for belonging is part of the human condition and that young people had a wide range of strategies to connect with others across cultural divides.