2012 年 25 巻 p. 7-11
This paper focuses on the roles and significance of Australia's census survey and citizenship test in a multicultural society. Australia has become a multilingual society through various language policies. In particular, the census survey, which aims at investigating multicultural diversity, and the citizenship test, which seeks social unity, are both recognized as major policies in this regard. However in recent years, the terms diversity, a keyword in describing a multicultural society, and unity, a keyword in upholding traditional norms, as characteristic features of both the census survey and citizenship test, are regarded to be incompatible. Australia currently faces the issue of how these two inconsistent concepts can coexist in the establishment of a post-modern multilingual society. This issue may be an important one for other societies such as Japan, which is moving towards an immigration society. The paper raises a political question by introducing census questions and citizenships test applied in other countries such as the US, Canada, UK, and New Zealand for census survey, and Germany, Denmark and Canada for citizenship test. In addition, it offers some possible suggestions with regard to Japan, which is expected to encounter similar issues in the near future.