This book began with specific goals in mind. The first was to address the issue of mass education in ways that had something to offer a range of different readers. This book is not aimed specifically at undergraduates, any more than it is directed at practising teachers or university academics. Each chapter has been organised with a progressive layering of complexity and density, such that readers with differing levels of knowledge and expertise should still be able to get something out of it. This has not been written as a textbook, with bitesized pieces tailor-made for tutorial digestion. This book was put together for a range of reasons: it is a summary of the current state of play within Australian (and global) theories of education; it is a resource book for those interested in assessing the weight of different conceptual approaches to mass schooling; it is an analysis of various issues within contemporary society as they relate to education; it is a (relatively) gentle critique of reductionist analyses of our schooling institutions and their outcomes; and it is a call for us not to forget the value of philosophy within the broader play of the social sciences.

The Vietnam War posed significant challenges to academics on educational exchange who were expected under the Fulbright Program to be ambassadors as well as researchers. The CIA surveillance of the anti-war movement and political interference in the administration of the Fulbright Program from government caused academics in both Australia and America to defend the autonomy of the program. How did scholars interpret the ambassadorial expectation when they were opposed to their government’s foreign policy? Many also found they could not speak critically of their national government without antagonising their hosts. Living up to the Fulbright Program’s ideal of achieving ‘mutual understanding’ was very much a matter of learning by experience, to be interpreted by scholars for whom research was actually the priority.

The Australian Fulbright Program was implemented after the election of the Menzies’ Liberal Party government. As Australia’s Cold War deepened the Menzies government signed other treaties with the United States, establishing the ANZUS Alliance. Administration of the program of educational exchange had to be established amid attempts at political influence and resistance from university staff who still looked to England for prestige and career advancement. The terms of the Australian Fulbright Agreement ensured a sound foundation, more autonomy meant the appointment of Australian staff to administer the program and who understood how to reach the Australian university researchers to participate.

How did the Fulbright Program evolve in relation to the challenge of racial diversity? For the first several decades of the Fulbright Program Australia had a mass immigration program and a White Australia policy of racial exclusion. This influenced the fields of research in which Fulbright awards were made. Aboriginal Australians were the objects of research by visiting American scholars but did not themselves begin to win awards until the 1970s. In the mid-1960s many of those who were leading the call for change in immigration laws were Fulbright scholars. Australians travelling to the United States on educational exchange observed racial segregation and some became politically active and influenced movements on behalf of Aboriginal people. The first recipient of the Distinguished Visitor Award under the Fulbright Program was African-American historian John Hope Franklin. A special category of award for Aboriginal Australians was initiated in 1992.

Tensions between Australia and the United States over administration of the Fulbright Program soon became apparent in contests over which researchers should be given awards. The United States retained control over the decisions within the Board of Foreign Scholarships in Washington and on occasion exerted pressure about the kind of scholars that were wanted. Australian selection committees tended to favour scientists, the United States wanted to send humanities and social science scholars as more appropriate interpreters of culture. From these discussions we can see what US cultural diplomacy looked like and what influences were brought to bear.

By the early 1960s the original Fulbright Agreement had expired and a new one was negotiated, as a bi-national agreement with the Australian government providing equal funding. This was signed in 1964, in the context of increasing military intervention in the war in Vietnam by both the United States and Australia. Under the ANZUS and SEATO treaties, signed the previous decade, Australia was a keen ally of the United States in Vietnam. The Fulbright Program and the Australia–US alliance were pursued simultaneously by the Australian government. Senator Fulbright visited Australia, criticised the alliance and became a leading dissenter to the Vietnam War. Academics on educational exchange also became active in the anti-war movement.

The impact of neo-liberalism on the university sector had profound consequences for the Fulbright Program’s ability to support academic research. Bi-nationalism had meant the Australian Fulbright Program was well-funded by the Australian government even as the US government reduced its contribution in the late 1960s and 1970s. From the 1980s further cutbacks meant the program had to turn towards the private sector and corporate funding for support, involve the alumni and to introduce targeted scholarships. This raised dilemmas about autonomy and freedom from interference that had plagued the Fulbright Program throughout its history.

Women were recipients of awards under the Fulbright Program from the first year of its existence in Australia. They were keen to take advantage of the opportunity for educational exchange and in doing so they changed the gender dynamics of universities. The Fulbright Program supported fields in Australia where more women were employed and that were not yet disciplines taught in the universities. Women academics were participants in creating new fields, and reorienting Australian higher education from its British orientation. They encountered discrimination within the administration of the program and it took a long time for women to be appointed to the board of the Fulbright Program, and until 1990 for the first woman to become its chair. From then on women increased their proportion of the awards being made.

During the Cold War the Fulbright Program was considered an effective arm of US ‘soft power’ and cultural diplomacy. The United States saw Australia as strategically valuable in the Asia-Pacific region of the world and under the Menzies Liberal Party government, Australia shared the US military and defence agenda. How could the Fulbright Program maintain its independence from government interference in the powerful force of Cold War geopolitics? Australia’s Fulbright board held strongly to the importance of independence and the role of academics to ensure that.