Creating a citizenship curriculum: What do we know about the way students learn to be citizens?

In recent times, the global community has had to respond to massive turbulences such as the financial tsunami, the 'swine flu' pandemic and what seems like ongoing international terrorism. At the same time, there are the recurrent issues of the ongoing dislocations caused by wars, historic conflicts and tensions. The need for effective programmes of citizenship education is more apparent now than ever. This paper reviews recent research concerned with the citizenship curriculum and student learning. It draws on international literature to examine how different societies have responded to the need for school programmes of citizenship education and it will identify international best practice in this area. It focuses particularly on empirical research in an attempt to identify those variables that best facilitate student learning of citizenship knowledge and skills. Based on this review, principles for citizenship curriculum are proposed to meet the ongoing challenges that seem to be a feature of living in this new century. Copyright © 2009 Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University.