Multicultural realities: the everyday experiences of migrant youth in Melbourne, Toronto and Birmingham

Fethi Mansouri; Lori Beaman; Serena Hussain

doi:10.1080/07256868.2025.2565758

Multicultural realities: the everyday experiences of migrant youth in Melbourne, Toronto and Birmingham

Fethi Mansouri
, Lori Beaman
, Serena Hussain

Research Centre for Peace and Security

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Drawing on empirical data from Australia, Canada, and England, this paper investigates how migrant youth engage with multiculturalism through the lens of transcultural capital. Employing a comparative framework, we examine how these young individuals interpret, experience, and mobilise overlapping multicultural discourses in their everyday lives. By centring the lived experiences of migrant youth, we shift the analytical focus from abstract ideals to what we term ‘lived multiculturalism’—the practical enactment of multicultural values in daily interactions. Our findings reveal that migrant youth conceptualise and practise multiculturalism as a dynamic reservoir of values and resources that inform their cultural orientations and social engagements. Moreover, participants actively draw on these value systems to construct their identities and negotiate belonging. These interpretations, however, are mediated by the distinct social and policy contexts of each national setting.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	629-644
Number of pages	16
Journal	Journal of Intercultural Studies
Volume	46
Issue number	4
Early online date	3 Oct 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2025.2565758
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 3 Oct 2025

Bibliographical note

© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Funding

This work was funded by the Australian Research Council: [Grant Number DP180100786].

Funders	Funder number
Australian Research Council	DP180100786

Keywords

Multiculturalism
diversity
migrant youth
social inclusion
transcultural capital

Access to Document

10.1080/07256868.2025.2565758Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Hussain2025VoRFinal published version, 420 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "Multicultural realities: the everyday experiences of migrant youth in Melbourne, Toronto and Birmingham",

abstract = "Drawing on empirical data from Australia, Canada, and England, this paper investigates how migrant youth engage with multiculturalism through the lens of transcultural capital. Employing a comparative framework, we examine how these young individuals interpret, experience, and mobilise overlapping multicultural discourses in their everyday lives. By centring the lived experiences of migrant youth, we shift the analytical focus from abstract ideals to what we term {\textquoteleft}lived multiculturalism{\textquoteright}—the practical enactment of multicultural values in daily interactions. Our findings reveal that migrant youth conceptualise and practise multiculturalism as a dynamic reservoir of values and resources that inform their cultural orientations and social engagements. Moreover, participants actively draw on these value systems to construct their identities and negotiate belonging. These interpretations, however, are mediated by the distinct social and policy contexts of each national setting.",

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AB - Drawing on empirical data from Australia, Canada, and England, this paper investigates how migrant youth engage with multiculturalism through the lens of transcultural capital. Employing a comparative framework, we examine how these young individuals interpret, experience, and mobilise overlapping multicultural discourses in their everyday lives. By centring the lived experiences of migrant youth, we shift the analytical focus from abstract ideals to what we term ‘lived multiculturalism’—the practical enactment of multicultural values in daily interactions. Our findings reveal that migrant youth conceptualise and practise multiculturalism as a dynamic reservoir of values and resources that inform their cultural orientations and social engagements. Moreover, participants actively draw on these value systems to construct their identities and negotiate belonging. These interpretations, however, are mediated by the distinct social and policy contexts of each national setting.

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Multicultural realities: the everyday experiences of migrant youth in Melbourne, Toronto and Birmingham

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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Keywords

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