TRANSCRIPT
According to the 2021 census, almost one in four Australians speak a language other than English at home.
A new report by SBS and the University of Canberra that looks into sense of belonging and media representation among multilingual Australia has found the majority of them feel like they belonged to Australia, but less than half of them feel they can have influence over Australian society.
Thu Nguyen is a co-author of the report.
She has told SBS Vietnamese that factors such as residency status, media representation and English proficiency can contribute to the overall sense of belonging.
"There are variation and nuances across different language community because of their status in Australia, because of their dynamics in terms of demographics, and time of settlement in Australia, however the most consistent factor that has influence on community sense of belonging is probably English proficiency, or their confidence in their English language. We found people that are more fluent in English are more likely to feel they belonged, feel at home."
The report is a follow-up on the same survey in 2023, but this time it interviewed over 1,800 respondents across seven languages, including Arabic, Cantonese, Italian, Mandarin, Punjabi, Vietnamese and English.
It shows that while compared to the same survey done in 2023, there's an increased sense of belonging as more people feel their needs being met and their community members caring each other - there are still challenges to overcome.
The report also indicates a generational divide, showing younger multilingual respondents are more likely to engage in national and global issues compared to older generation, but also less likely to agree that their cultural communities are fairly represented by media.
Punjabi speakers were interviewed for the first time in this series of surveys - and the report has they have the highest sense of belonging across other cohorts, while Mandarin speakers feels the least connected.
Thu Nguyen says one of them is media representation of multicultural communities.
"In terms of representation in the media and in the news, they are however more critical about feeling fairly represented, covered in the media. And we know, from the previous research, again, the finding this time confirm there's such a strong connection between feeling represented in the media in the news and feeling that they belong in Australia."
The report also sheds light on a concept known as collective efficacy, which refers to the belief on the impacts of people's own cultural or language community can have on Australian society.
It shows those who have stronger belief in their own collectives are more likely to engage in civic participation, such as volunteering, joining protests, and voting in elections.
But while two-third of multilingual Australians have at least one civic engagement, their participation can be uneven.
The report finds Mandarin and Punjabi speakers reported the highest civic participation rates, while Cantonese speakers reported the lowest, at 49 per cent.
Co-author Rebecca Griffiths, who's also the Audience Research Lead at SBS, has told SBS Arabic there is still a lot to do.
"Our recommendation is that even though we've seen a very positive outcome in this research with the sense of belonging, and we are seeing growth within the community, there is still work to be done. So we still need to foster representation across news and media more broadly and beyond media, we also need to provide resources and support to help English language learning, and we also need to foster citizenship in Australia as well for communities."
