Jerzy Jarosław Smolicz AM (2 February 1935, in Warsaw – 3 November 2006, in Adelaide), also known as J. J. "George" Smolicz, was a Polish-born sociologist and educationalist acknowledged widely as a major contributor to cultural understanding in Australia. A key figure in developing and implementing Australia's multicultural and language policies, he was a Senior Consultant on Multiculturalism to the Fraser government and for 20 years was Chair of the Multicultural Education Committee in South Australia.
Award
In 1988, Smolicz was awarded an AM in recognition of his services to Australian multiculturalism, and in 2002 received the inaugural UNESCO Linguapax Prize for his "lifelong contribution to the study of language policy in linguistically diverse societies".
Research and Teaching
Smolicz was an academic staff member of the Department of Education at the University of Adelaide for 39 years. Appointed as a lecturer in 1965, he was promoted through the ranks and, in 1987, appointed to a Personal Chair in Education. He taught in the field of Sociology of Education at two levels: to graduate students doing a Graduate Diploma in Education as preparation for teaching in secondary schools and at Masters level for those preparing to become research students. His teaching followed his diverse research interests, which included the history and sociology of science and its implications for science teaching; the functionalist theory of the American sociologist Robert K. Merton and its application to aggression, competition and equality of opportunity in schools; the concepts and method of humanistic sociology, derived from the Polish-American sociologist, Florian Znaniecki; the application of humanistic sociology to understanding cultural and linguistic pluralism and its implications for education in Australia; and language policies in linguistically plural societies.
Cultural and Linguistic Pluralism
His pioneering research on cultural and linguistic pluralism was based on respondents from different ethnic communities in and around Adelaide. He was interested in asking immigrant parents and their children about their experiences in trying to maintain in the home a language and culture which were different from those of mainstream Australian society. Together with research students over a span of more than thirty years, he investigated groups of respondents from many different communities (Italian, Greek and Armenian; Polish, Croatian and Ukrainian; Ethiopian and Arab; Chinese and Indian; Vietnamese, Cambodian, Uighur and Filipino, as well as Welsh people and mainstream Anglo-Celtic Australian).
Publications
Many of his publications were the result of collaboration with research students who later became colleagues. He wrote monographs and articles about history and sociology of science with Alessandro Gardini and Edward Nunan. In 1981, he wrote a book on children from Polish immigrant families in Australian schools was a joint work with research student and later colleague, Dr Margaret Secombe. (A Polish translation appeared in 1990.) He conducted a study in 1984 of the adaptation and assimilation of young Australians of Polish ancestry, published in Polish, was a joint enterprise with an early research student, now Professor Roger Harris. It was awarded the Florian Znaniecki prize by the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Co-authors of journal articles and book chapters included: Dr Giancarlo Chiro, on Italian language and culture Dr Dorothy Hudson on cultural valence among respondents from mainstream and minority ethnic backgrounds Chenny Yiv on university students of Cambodian background Malathi Murugaian on Indian background students Lillian Lee on Chinese background students Dr Illuminado NIcal on Filipino background students and language policy in the Philippines Dr Arthur Hughes on Welsh language maintenance in Australia.
Theory of multiculturalism
To make sense of the results from these studies, Smolicz developed a theory of multiculturalism. This held that the central, most important parts of ethnic minority cultures - what he termed the group's core values - were held in balance with the key values of Australian society as a whole. These latter values, which could be envisaged as overarching all groups in society, related to areas of life which those living in Australia needed to know, if they were to be free to participate in mainstream public life, rather than disadvantaged or marginalised.