The term Public Diplomacy refers to the mechanisms used by an international actor –whether a government, international organization, NGO or even an individual– to advance their foreign policy by engaging foreign publics. These efforts to ‘understand, inform, engage, and influence foreign audiences’ have historically included information campaigns, personal contacts and cultural/exchange programs abroad (CULL and RODRÍGUEZ, 2015). As a result of the geopolitical context of the Cold War, both Washington and the USSR strove to deploy their respective models –including economic, education or sociological patterns– across the world, trying to nurture their alliances with other governments, and fostering their areas of influence.

  The Fulbright program was considered to be an important element in the American Public Diplomacy campaigns in Europe. It was designed to foment “mutual understanding” between the European and the American societies. While Spain, due to its anti-communist dictatorship, was not an especially important target, Washington was concerned about the anti-Americanism that characterized Spanish public opinion. Therefore, the Fulbright grants were supposed to diffuse American “high” culture as part of their campaign to win over the Spanish public; conversely, the Spanish government was especially interested in receiving American Science and knowhow, badly needed for the country’s economic development. (DELGADO, 2008).

In the 1960s, as Western prosperity spread across southern Europe, the out-dated educational structures in countries such as Spain proved incapable of offering the appropriate tools to face the challenge of modernization. To remedy this situation, organisations such as the OECD and UNESCO proposed a restructuring of the educational system. Accepting these suggestions, the Franco dictatorship undertook a wide-reaching reform of its education system. A transformation, which was influenced by pedagogical practices, imported from abroad. (FERNÁNDEZ, 2005)

Some of the government officials leading this effort of modernising the Spanish education system have previously participated in the Fulbright program or in other U.S. Exchange Diplomacy initiatives; likewise Spanish professors and doctorate students specialising in education had the chance of researching and/or studying in American campuses, with their American counterparts doing the same in Spanish classrooms.

In this paper we aim to scrutinize the diverse U.S. Public Diplomacy initiatives deployed in Franco Spain, aiming at the modernization of the Spanish education. Our goal is to analyse the impact of American models and know how on the most ambitious educational reform in Spain since the 19^th century. The 1970 reform was a conscious effort to leave behind the traditional classist and rigid structure and implement instead a flexible and up to date education system from primary education up to the university (PUELLES BENÍTEZ, 1999; ESCOLANO BENITO, 1980). It was thus a wide and complex effort in which many local and international specialists took part (MILITO BARONE and GROVES, 2013). In this paper we will focus on the role of the graduates of the educational exchange programs on two important institutions which accompanied the implementation of the reform: The Institutos de Ciencias de la Educación (ICE, Institutes for Education Sciences) and the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo de la Educación (CENIDE, National Center for the Development and Improvement of Education). These institutions were designated with the responsibility of teacher training, teaching innovation and the promotion of educational research, and were to play a leading role in the modernisation of Spanish education.^[1] Our paper, thus, seeks to evaluate the contribution of American exchange programs to shaping educational leadership in Spain, and the ability of these specialists to bring about changes in the performance of Spanish education.     

[1] American support for the creation of these institutions in DELGADO, 2010: 120 

ARNDT, Richard and RUBIN, David: The Fulbright Difference, 1948-1992., New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993. CULL, Nicholas and RODRÍGUEZ, Francisco J.: “Soft Power, Public Diplomacy And Democratization” in U.S. Public Diplomacy and Democratization in Spain. Selling Democracy? New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 1-14. DELGADO, Lorenzo (2010): “After Franco, What?” La diplomacia pública de Estados Unidos y la preparación del post-franquismo” en MARTÍN GARCÍA, Óscar y ORTIZ HERAS, Manuel (coords.), Claves internacionales en la Transición española Madrid, 2010, Catarata, pp. 102-106. DELGADO, Lorenzo: “Viento de Poniente” El programa Fulbright en España, 1958-2008., Madrid: Comisión Fulbright España-LID Editorial Empresarial-AECID, 2009. ESCOLANO BENITO , Agustín (et al.) La investigación pedagógica universitaria en España. Salamanca: Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación, 1980. FERNÁNDEZ, José Manuel: ‘Influencias nacionales europeas en la política educativa española’, Historia de la educación, vol. 24 (2005), 31-32. MILITO BARONE, Cecilia Cristina y Tamar Groves: “¿Modernización o democratización? La construcción de un nuevo sistema educativo entre el tardofranquismo y la democracia”, Bordón 65:4, (2013),135-148. MUÑOZ, Emilio, and Florencio Ornia. Ciencia Y Tecnología: Una Oportunidad Para España. Madrid: Aguilar, 1986. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and Spain. Confrontación España-OCDE Sobre La Política De La Información Científica Y Técnica: [informe De Base]. Madrid: Dirección General de Archivos y Bibliotecas, 1973. PAMPILLÓN, Rafael. El Déficit Tecnológico Español. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Económicos, 1991. Print. Colección Estudios. PUELLES BENÍTEZ, Manuel de. Educación e Ideología en la España Contemporánea. Madrid: tecnos,1999. VIÑAO, A. Escuela Para Todos: Educación Y Modernidad En La España Del Siglo XX. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2004. Print. Historia / Marcial Pons.