Religion, shared values, and history led American politicians to support the Zionist cause during the inter-war years. Presidents, politicians, and the American people supported the Zionist aspirations, although, it was only after the Second World War that the Americans became actively involved in Zionist affairs. During the inter-war years, the British government acted to fulfil the commitment it made in 1917 to help the Jews to establish a national home in Palestine. When the winds of war were blowing across Europe, the British began to back out of from the mandate and their commitments, and the Zionists turned to the United States for support. This marked a change in the Zionist attitude toward the United States – they wanted to see the United States extend its sponsorship of the Zionist enterprise. The ideological infrastructure for such a tutelage already existed; now the Zionists expected the Americans to act upon their ideology. During the war years, more promises were made than actions taken. However, when the war was over, and a new president, Harry S. Truman, occupied the White House, ideas inspired action, and President Truman acted to assist the Jews in attaining their goal of statehood.

In this chapter you will learn about how policy is shaped by and, in turn, shapes our educational thinking, work, teaching practices and future research.

You will be introduced to a number of policies that exist at different institutional levels, including initial teacher education policies that govern your practice during professional experience and policies that exist in schools and other education settings.

National frameworks discussed in this chapter are the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST), particularly in relation to understanding policies and practices, and the Australian Curriculum, which emerged originally from a policy text, titled the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (now known as the Melbourne Declaration) and was developed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. ACARA, like the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), is a federally funded body responsible for setting and enacting government policy reforms. The recent release of the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration heralds the next wave of changes to the Australian education policy landscape.

Chapter 10, The Cultural Diplomacy of Imaginary Fact, theorises the exhibition in the 2013 South Africa Pavilion at the International Art Biennale in Venice as a unique instance of cultural diplomacy. Imaginary Fact plays a paradoxical role in the process of nation building because it presents a dual image of a nation struggling with ongoing internal complexities, while projecting a collective narrative of a state that has undergone a difficult transition and come out the other side to re-assert itself in the international community.By examining South Africa’s conception of cultural diplomacy presented in government white papers, I show how the official image of South Africa as a global competitor (a transitioned nation) sits uncomfortably with the artists’ image of South Africa as a transitioning nation circumscribed by ongoing challenges to human rights.I argue that this establishes a glocal (global–local) image of the state which is in tension with South Africa’s foreign policy agenda.