La diversité ethnique croissante des quartiers de classe moyenne dans la métropole montréalaise : des jeunes familles perplexes.

The impact of the growing ethnic diversity of Canada's largest cities has been widely discussed. However, middle-class neighborhoods in recent ethnocultural transition have not been explored, especially the representations of these changes by their inhabitants. In this paper, we study attitudes of young families, immigrant and non-immigrant, towards ethnic transformations. When raising their children, young family households seem particularly concerned with their living environment and the representation of the changes occurring within their neighbourhood. Our study builds on fifty interviews conducted with families attending public places (parks and public libraries) in two neighbourhoods in the Montreal metropolitan area-one in the suburb, the other in the inner city. While increasing ethnic diversity does not seem to have a direct impact on their residential choices, our results show the more perplexing relation of young families towards changes within their environment, as these extend well beyond differentiated urban experiences between suburbs and the inner city. Schools, libraries, cultural and leisure activities organized in parks also appear as important places in the meeting of young families with the Unexpected Other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]