In the interwar period, the International Institute for Intellectual Co-Operation and the International Bureau of Education saw education as crucial to advancing internationalism, and advocated revision of school textbooks and history teaching as part of disseminating the ideals of internationalism among children and fostering ‘worldly’ citizens (Hofstetter & Schneuwly 2013; Fuchs 2010). So-called fundamental or adapted forms of education in preparation for wage labour were recommended for colonised or native populations (Jones & Coleman 2005). The British Colonial Office and American philanthropic organisations as well as colonial administrations promoted the reform of education towards the production of new citizens, and modes and practices of subjectivity, involving non-native and native subjects (Berman 1980).

There is surprisingly little investigation, however, of the distinctiveness yet interconnection of these ideas about education and internationalism in relation to the Dominions (Pietsch 2013; Goodman 2014; Whitehead 2003). During the interwar years, the New Education Fellowship held a series of highly successful conferences in the Dominions attracting large audiences in South Africa in 1934, and in Australia and New Zealand 1937 (Campbell & Sherington 2006; Godfrey 2004). Australian experts, practitioners and members of the public engaged in international dialogue about education in making the modern world and in forging new citizens (McLeod 2012). Australian non-government actors were key players in international networks operating across the British Dominions and in the Pacific, where educational opportunities for native and non-natives within the British Commonwealth were considered comparatively (Paisley 2000, 2009). Through examining a major international education conference held in 1936 in Hawaii addressing the education of native people, this paper will explore the flow of ideas between Geneva and international networks operating in the Pacific region, with particular attention to their significance for educational reform debate, policy and practice in relation to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in Australia.