In the autumn of 1939, Poland was invaded and divided in half by the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany took over western Poland, while the U.S.S.R. took over the southeast. The Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on September 17, 1939, pursuant to provisions of the secret protocol of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, came as a complete surprise to Poland's thirteen million residents and to diplomats around the world. In the months that followed, the Soviets imposed a complex administrative system in the region, with the goal of “Sovietizing” conquered territories. The dismantling of local religious institutions and the creation of Soviet schooling for millions of Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish, and Belorussian children were all part of this program. Additionally, starting in February 1940, the Soviet authorities carried out four punitive waves of deportation of some 320,000 Polish citizens (men, women, and children) into the interior of the U.S.S.R.

The involvement of the United States in World War I, from April 1917 to November 1918, marked a high point in the history of American internationalist thought and engagement. During those nineteen months, President Woodrow Wilson and his administration called on Americans to aid European civilians and to support Wilson's plans for a peacetime League of Nations, defining both as civic obligations; many responded positively. The postwar years, however, saw a significant popular backlash against such cosmopolitan expectations. In 1920, Congress failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and rejected U.S. participation in the League. A growing chorus for 100% Americanism and immigration restriction, meanwhile, offered evidence of a U.S. public that was becoming more insular, more withdrawn from the world. Yet such trends were never universal. As scholars have begun to acknowledge, many Americans remained outward looking in their worldviews throughout the period, seeing engagement with and compassion for the international community as vital to ensuring world peace.

Schooling for racial, ethnic, or religious minorities presents a challenge in the American democracy. Such groups, insofar as they are equal citizens, have the right to maintain their identities. As such, they have often used separate educational institutions to transmit distinct traditions, values, and mores. To the extent that the American experiment is a pluralistic one, the decision to remain different from dominant groups is a valid one.