This paper recapitulates a lecture given on June 26, 2018 at the Educational Vision Research Institute, Hiroshima University by Thomas Misco, a professor from Miami University. The title of Prof. Misco’s lecture was “Education in Asia and Oceania: Why are these contexts so intriguing for a US researcher?” The lecture described how Prof. Misco became interested in education systems throughout Asia and Oceania, and also outlined the development of his career. The lecture also showed how Prof. Misco’s studies focusing on specific examples of education systems in various countries were significant in generating hypotheses for other current or future contexts. Prof. Misco’s research career was shown to be suitable for exploring the context of US social studies education in recent years and is also applicable for future studies of Japanese social studies education.