Using the results of three IEA civic education studies (conducted in 1971, 1999/2000 and 2009), this paper reviews how research in this area followed different perspectives on educating youth for citizenship in rapidly changing contexts and suggests new dimensions for better understanding who will be the next generation of citizens.

Three important areas in which changes in education for citizenship will be illustrated concern (i) the type of competencies considered necessary for an individual to take the role of citizen, (ii) the content of citizenship education and (iii) the role of the student in this process.

First, one can argue that in general, there was a growing understanding over the years that citizenship requires more than basic knowledge and comprehension of the political process accompanied by basic loyalty to the country (taught by participation in patriotic rituals). The 1971 study had shown that it is unwise to assume that the knowledgeable students will support democracy. The subsequent studies (1999/2000 and 2009) reflected a greater interest in students’ skills in critical analysis, value beliefs and behavioral intentions as important components of citizenship competencies. They also exposed the role of a democratic school environment for educating democratic citizens.

Second, since the 1970s, the content of civic education broadened from the basic foundations of a nation’s social/political organization to regional and global issues, such as the environment, immigration, or (in ICCS 2009) threats to democracy and terrorism. This opened education also to major societal dilemmas, and research showed that school students’ knowledge and views on those dilemmas reflected the political culture of their countries.

Third, while political socialization was traditionally considered a result of school and home influences, not much attention was placed on informal peer groups, community in a broader sense and the media. Those became an important object of interest at the end of the 20^th century together with a global youth culture, with its shared consumer tastes but also aspirations for freedom and a better world. Thus more attention was given to students’ individual sense of connection to different civic communities, self image and self-efficacy in the civic area.

Two important groups of factors contributed to changes in studies of education for citizenship: “location factor” (growing diversity of countries participating in the IEA projects) and “time factor” (overtime changes in the countries and in the world). While nine old western democracies participated in the 1971 study, the 1999/2000 assessment included also twelve new democracies of Eastern Europe, and the 2009 assessment added to this six Latin American countries and five countries from Asia. This variety of countries disclosed numerous aspects of citizenship education in different regions, resulting in the core international part of the study and three regional modules. Time-dependent changes included general changes in education (for example, the growing democratization of schools), civic education curricula changes, and changes in the world such as further development of cross national organizations, growing immigration and political reactions to this phenomenon, and the war against terrorism.

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