Multidimensional citizenship and teacher education

We are living through a transformation that is rearranging the politics and economics of the past century. The problem with present educational systems is that they have not, by and large, adjusted to the new historical realities, that, for better or worse, have resulted from processes of globalisation. This is not a statement of blame; it is a statement of an accelerated historical lag created by an unprecedented magnitude of change. Certain changes must take place in the content, the methods and in the social context of education if schools are to become more effective agents of citizen education in a global age. In this paper, I describe the Citizenship Education Policy Study's (CEPS) effort to identify the key trends that will dominate the early part of the 21st century. The CEPS study found that in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century, we need a more comprehensive vision of citizenship, namely multidimensional citizenship, that requires citizens to address a series of interconnected dimensions of thought, belief and action. Applying this concept to formal processes of education, this paper introduces the concept of 'Multidimensional Citizenship Education' (MDCE) as a research-derived approach to build upon and go beyond more traditional conceptions of citizenship and citizenship education and thereby address the challenges of citizenship in a emerging global era. The paper concludes with an examination of the implications of MDCE for teacher education with illustrations from efforts to utilise this concept in Hong Kong's teacher education program through a Centre for Citizenship Education derived from the MDCE framework. Copyright © 2002 Pacific Circle Consortium for Education.