Jerzy Smolicz

A second important forum which Smolicz used for sharing his research and theory was CISME, the Centre for Intercultural Studies and Multicultural Education, which he established within the University of Adelaide in 1989. Over the next fifteen years he organized over 200 CISME seminars on intercultural and multicultural issues, half of which were addressed by international academics and visitors. The CISME members and others who attended the seminars included government, business and community leaders. Teachers and students from schools across all education sectors, as well as the universities, benefited especially from those seminars which related to languages education in various settings. CISME was closed down in 2006.

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".

These two sides of language learning in the Australian context are clearly reflected in the recommendations of the 1984 Report presented to the South Australian Minister of Education by the Taskforce to Investigate Multiculturalism and Education, which was chaired by Smolicz. The Report was entitled Education for a Cultural Democracy.

Such overarching values included democratic ideals, rights and responsibilities; English as the common language of the nation and the political, legal and economic patterns which applied to all citizens and residents. In balance with these commonalities was the recognition that a wide range of cultural diversity could exist in other areas of life, such as home languages, religious beliefs and practices, patterns of family life, music, art and architecture, food and festivities, sports and leisure pursuits. Ethnic communities could maintain their core values in these areas for the well-being of their individual members, the vitality of their community life and for sharing with other interested Australians, without denying their commitment to the nation of Australia. This sort of cultural interaction within and among individuals from both mainstream and minority ethnic backgrounds would provide the basis for Australia to become an ongoing and dynamic multicultural nation. These ideas are most fully developed in Smolicz's 1979 book, Culture and Education in a Plural Society, and the 1999 book, J. J. Smolicz on Education and Culture.

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.

The main thrust of Smolicz's research findings and theory can be seen most clearly in the area of languages. All the different studies revealed that many immigrant parents wished to maintain their own language in the home - alongside the use of English in public domains, as the common language of the nation. They wanted their children to be competent in English and to have literacy skills in the home language as well. And many of the children shared these aspirations. Through the 1960s and early 1970s, however, the school curriculum did not allow these invaluable linguistic resources in other languages to be developed for the enrichment of the individual children and their families, as well as the benefit of Australian society. English was the taken for granted language of instruction throughout education, while until the late 1960s the only other languages taught in schools were Ancient Greek, Latin, French and German. Furthermore, the study of these was restricted to students in the upper IQ range of secondary schools. The one exception to this was the mother tongue teaching being provided by community-based ethnic schools, without any public recognition or support.

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.