This paper discusses the motivations that drive the internationalization of basic education, with special attention to high school. Through a qualitative and deductive analysis, the research has the hypothesis that the inclusion of the theme of internationalization of basic education in public schools is directly related to the politicalinstitutional and sociological motivations, in the context of globalization and new strategies for international operations national and subnational actors, and, in the case of the Education, the main instrument for this action is the teaching of modern foreign languages. The analysis was developed through theoretical analysis in the field of International Relations, Political Science, Sociology and Law, as well as the practical field, to analyze possible factors of internationalization in the Secretariat of Education of the State of São Paulo. At the end, it is concluded that the process of globalization (and its integrative and exclusionary character), the process of regional integration, new strategies of action states through public diplomacy and paradiplomacy, the new strategies for schooling from families (and from states), the resumption of the importance of teaching modern foreign languages from the LDB 1996, and the growing demand for knowledge in this field, had caused the environment and the conditions required for the issue of the agenda and enter in the field of public policy.