This paper examines how international education (IE), as an important tool of public diplomacy (PD) and soft power (SP), faces unique challenges as issues of national security (NS) become more prominent in this era of new geopolitics. It presents a model to understand the relationship between PD, SP and NS and then applies this model to a…

On December 3, 2024, the U.S.-Mexico Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute hosted the fourth edition of the Convocation program, coined Convocation 4.0. This event brought together thirteen former American, Canadian, and Mexican ambassadors to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, along with two current ambassadors and various…

This paper examines how international education (IE) as a tool of government foreign policy is challenged in an era of new geopolitics, where China's growing ambitions have increased rivalry with the West. It compares U.S. and Canada as cases first, by examining rationales and approaches to IE in both countries, second, IE relations with China…

We function in an increasingly politicized environment, hostile to Socratic discourse and the pedagogies of education abroad. The classroom has become a battleground in which ideologies of right and left collide, making debate and dissent problematic. These pressures have distorted the ways in which we talk about our endeavors. We believe that…

How individuals interpret the justifications for historical war can have a large effect on how they see modern warfare. In the social studies classroom, particularly in the U.S. context, so much of what educators focus on in regard to war are the events of World War II. This focus on the Second World War is understandable. However, it could also…

UNESCO's relatively high prestige across East Asia has spurred intensifying efforts by governments to use its imprimatur to legitimate official narratives of the past and visions of the future. This article focuses on China's use of UNESCO as an arena for competitive national 'branding' in the education field, especially relating to STEM and AI.…

This article analyses the concept of the state as represented in primary school social science textbooks in Spain during the transition to democracy. The analysis of textbooks during this period has tended to focus on the importance of National Catholicism (Nacionalcatolicismo) or the technocratic vision in the framing of their representations.…

The Fulbright Program is the United States' flagship educational exchange program. Since 1946, the program has been heralded as a program that promotes mutual understanding across cultures. However, the Fulbright Program's role as a U.S. Department of State initiative warrants further examination of how this educational exchange program functions…

This study brings together insights from the Science Education Initiative with a new course, "Spy Novel Diplomacy: Propaganda and International Relations," which has been taught as a General Education Seminar for first year students. The class will continue on an annual basis from the spring semester of 2020 onward. Thus what follows is…

This paper focuses on the recent political spars between Canada and Saudi Arabia as well as China and their impact on Canadian universities. It asks three questions: (1) What key issues did Canada's political strains with Saudi Arabia and China raise for Canadian universities' international education (IE) initiatives and what issues were absent?…

In recent years, news media have increased reporting about alleged foreign interference in universities worldwide. A flurry of new policies has followed. This article reviews discourse and policy on foreign interference in higher education in select countries. It identifies the alleged perpetrators and victims, the victims' concerns and responses,…

Whilst Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 has influenced education in various ways, major reforms perceived as promoting mainland control have been resisted. For two decades, Hong Kong's educational autonomy under the 'one country, two systems' formula was thus largely maintained. This changed radically with the response to the…

South Sudan achieved political independence in 2011, before plunging into a series of civil wars that have culminated with the signing of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development, IGAD, driven peace agreement. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement, SPLM, Government has not created conducive environment for political stability in South…

The years of the Second World War (1939-1945), a period known as The Emergency in Ireland, were pivotal for the development of the nation. Immediately after the outburst of the war in the continent, the Fianna Fáil cabinet led by Éamon de Valera declared the state of emergency and adopted a neutrality policy. Brian O'Nolan (1911-1966), better…

This paper explores the way education and conflict have become entangled during the post-9/11 "war on terror" response to "radical Islam" at home and abroad. The paper charts the complex ways that education has been deployed to serve Western military and security objectives in multiple locations in the global south and how…