In June this year, Emeritus Professor John Western from the School of Social Science at The University of Queensland was made a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia for his services to education and, in particular, to sociology.
For over four decades John has helped to shape the academic discipline of sociology in Australia and the Asia-Pacific, pursuing and encouraging research which has had far-reaching impacts.
He has, at the same time, influenced the direction of socially-oriented, evidenced-based, public policy in Australia and has informed governments on issues ranging from Cyclone Tracy, to the cessation of logging on Fraser Island, to the role and impact of care-givers in Australia.
John completed undergraduate and masters degrees in psychology/social psychology at the University of Melbourne in the mid-to-late 1950s, undertaking doctoral studies in sociology at Columbia University where he was awarded his PhD in 1962.
He subsequently taught at Columbia and the Australian National University before becoming Senior Lecturer/Reader in Political Sociology - inTthe University of Queensland’s Department of Government - in 1966. In 1970 John was appointed as the first Professor of Sociology at UQ, a position he held until he retired. He was made Professor Emeritus, in 1996.
John has gained millions of dollars of funding for studies into areas such as class structure and social inequality, delinquency and criminality, and quality of life.
He has published over 50 authored, co-authored and co-edited books and monographs together with over 150 book chapters and journal articles. His books The Mass Media in Australia (1971, second edition 1983) and Social Inequality in Australian Society (1983) were groundbreaking, while his co-edited A Sociology of Australian Society (1988, with a third edition in 2000) was adopted as the standard introductory text in sociology in most Australian universities for more than a decade after its initial publication.
More recently John has co-authored Understanding Youth Crime: an Australian Study (2003) and is currently completing another book on social inequality.
He has been a visiting researcher at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London, and at both the University of Ottawa and the National University of Singapore.
He served as President of TASA, as well as its predecessor the Sociological Association of Australia and New Zealand (SAANZ). For his services to the development of the social sciences he was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1984, and for his international and influential work on sociology was elected to the Swiss Academy of Development in 1989.
John has had a significant influence on the internationalisation of social science education.
In creating the Master of Social Planning and Development degree at UQ some 30 years ago, John and colleagues recruited hundreds of Thai, Chinese, Malay and (more recently) Vietnamese students to the University. He also formed the Asia-Pacific Sociological Association and has remained an active member of that body.
His distinguished academic career has been paralleled by outstanding service and contributions to broader society. He was a Commissioner with the Criminal Justice Commission of Queensland from 1990 to 1993.
He also provided numerous research reports to Federal and State government bodies on such topics as public housing, homelessness, multiculturalism, and the ‘meaning’ and measurement of community strength/social capital.
That he continues to research in these, and other, areas and remains a prolific writer, is an indication of his dedication to the discipline of sociology.
It also demonstrates his capacity for creative and critical thought as a publicly-focused intellectual.
He is truly deserving of his AM in this year’s Queen’s Honours awards. Please join with our School in celebrating John’s achievement!
Geoff Lawrence PhD FASSA
Professor of Sociology and Head, School of Social Science
The University of Queensland
