JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS
Year:2006 | Volume:5 | Issue:17 |Papers Count:10

This article consists of three main and inter-related subjects: First, the explanation of the fundamental concepts of globalization, globalizing, having global views and nationalism, national identity, value system, citizenship, life skills, and their relationship with each other.Second, providing the author's research findings concerning the adolescent and youth students' status, their attitudes to ward different aspects of social and civil life, value-system, globalization, globalizing, as well as reviewing the important psycho-cognitive characteristics, which prevent citizenship development. Third, The description of the meaning, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship in the local, national, and global levels as well as the necessity and the how-to for teaching philosophy to school students and the correct way of thinking and decision making in the field of citizenship.The fundamental thesis offered in this article is that the Iranian education system should prepare the adolescents and youths for living in the current century of globalization if it wants to stabilize and develop the adolescents' and youths' national identity and the value-system and citizenship skills. For this purpose, the education system view on school curriculum and class activities in the public education system should change. Besides teaching ordinary lessons, the education system should concentrate on educational programs concerning national identity, human, religious, and national value system as well as trainings skills on citizenship and individual, social, economical, scientific, and cultural life. Teaching of local, national, and global citizenship to students is an important part of these programs.The results of studies offered in this article show that considerable groups of Iranian adolescents and youths have fundamental weaknesses in social and civic identity and are caught up with anti-social attitudes, wrongdoing, and rebellious mentality. In such circumstances it is urgent that the rights and responsibilities in the local, national, and global levels in various aspects of citizenship be taught in education programs to the students. Furthermore, the students are in need of teachings concerning how to think correctly as well as how to make wise decisions and accept responsibility. The method for these teachings is also discussed in this article.

This article includes three parts. In the first part an attempt has been made to describe the different views of social and educational scientist about basic definitions and major characteristics in process of citizenship education. In addition and in this part a brief discussion is presented about how citizenship education is related to the political, social, economic and religious aspiration of any society.The second section uses an analytical and comparative approach to development of citizenship education in Japan, in order to familiarize the readers with the past present situation of citizenship education in this country.In the final part and based on the experience of the author as well as the application of a question, some practical recommendation have been made in order to use for our reform and development of citizenship educational activities in the decades ahead. The question used was: How can we learn anything of practical value and knowledge from the study of a foreign educational system?

In the last few decades teaching values of citizenship has become an international mental concern and has formed a new view in education.An interest in teaching values of citizenship in commensurate with the culture and beliefs specific to each society has been established due to the need of training responsible and knowledgeable persons and also because of a continuous increase in communication, emergence of different cultures, and presentation of a variety of citizenship patterns, which in case of not being relevant to the national culture, they will damage the concept and act of responsible and active citizenship. In this scenario, finding an identity and coexistence on an international scale is sometimes difficult for the adolescent.The aim of the present study is to identify the system of values of citizenship, which is to be incorporated into the curriculum by considering the culture of this country and training and teaching at the elementary level.The type of this research study is applied and in terms of methodology is a survey research. Since the participants should all be experts, the population under study consists of experts who are conversant with the issues of training, education, and curriculum design.Thirty one subjects were chosen from the population through simple random selection procedures.In order to collect the needed data, questionnaires were designed and then validated by experts.The findings indicate that based on the students' age and grade, the values can be suggested and confirmed and then assigned to seven main categories to be taught at elementary schools. The categories are: personal identity, cultural identity, norms, religious identity, international identity, democracy, and participation.Incorporating these values into appropriate teaching methodologies for different levels, different age groups, and the intended values are identified in this study.

Citizenship is one of the most important matters in the area of social studies. It disseminates the principles of democracy in the society.Citizenship education has a particular importance. It plays an essential role for organizing a society and strengthening democratic foundations. Citizenship education is also considered an interaction between school and society. The concept of citizenship has been mooted by high schools in different shapes from the early last century. Therefore we can say, an important task of each society is to educate knowledgeable and responsible citizens who participate in the affairs of their society.Undoubtedly, the schools have a very important role in this area and the curricula should be planned in order to help the students get to this aim.The curricula should also identify factors which prevent from getting to this aim and removing them. This is because; the curricula (hidden curriculum) can contain factors that obstruct the citizenship education aims. Based on the above ideas, this paper tries to identify these hidden curriculum factors and suggest solutions for its reformation. In this direction, it has been used from different researches in the area of citizenship and citizenship education. The results indicate that hidden curriculum factors that are dangerous for citizenship education are consisted in order: social atmosphere, organizational structure, and interaction between teacher and student. At the end, solutions have been suggested for reformation.

The present article is to probe into the general concept of culture, ethnic2 and public cultures, place of cultures in official education programs for the purpose of social conformity and manifestation of the educated person as a citizen.This article is prepared with regards to the general meaning of culture, ethnic and popular cultures, and the cultures place in official education programs that are for the purpose of social compatibility and the trained person's reflection as a citizen. This article has analyzed culture and its various kinds by considering the importance of the subject, especially the role of culture in the "becoming" of the child and the teenager. As well; the article has investigated the relationship between culture and individual socialization and the ethnic cultures role for the purpose of citizen's education through education curriculum.In the process of analysis, it has presented a number of indicators for culture, national identity and citizenship to make a considerable change in the academic curriculum. It is a fact that all the domestic tribes and Iranians live in the same country with the same laws and regulations within a united government system to form a nation. Since equality of all units of a nation has been stipulated in the constitution, this article aims at presenting a number of offers for the purpose of planning and regulation of curriculum in the official education system on the basis of theoretical principles so that in can pave the way for understanding and recognition of the learner and their readiness for citizenship. This would cause to under stand the ethnical culture of the learner as well as other ethnics.

One of the most important and challenging tasks of an educational system is delivering "citizenship education". Even though this mission is of great concern to most countries, in Iran it has neither received enough attention, nor has a problem based approach taken place to educate the citizens to confront problems at the time of crisis.This paper is focused on Bam earthquake's young survivals who suffered greatly in the aftermath of disaster due to their lack of the necessary life skills to confront and cope with crisis. The aim of this project was identifying the necessary life skills needed for children after the earthquake. Thus, in addition to reviewing the existing literature on citizenship education, and crisis management, attempts made to identify and prioritize the basic life skills for that group of children.

The subject of "Future" has changed in to a serious area for research and study, especially from the last decade of the 20thcentury up till now.Besides numerous issues which would be considered in the field of "future researches", the topics of "future education", "future citizen", and "characteristics of the future citizen" are of great importance, because, with whatever approach we look at future, it would be formed by citizens. This article illustrates these concepts. Certain issues have been investigated with regard to the point that the future citizen, his characteristics, and his method of education are affected by more general processes. These include "future", "its processes", "preconditions", "goals", "tendencies", "visualizations", "advancements", "problems" and "the whole responses to the future options". Then the relationship between citizenship, education, and citizenship concept has been explained. Many previous researches in this area have been considered in order to investigate different attitudes about citizenship and characteristics of the future citizen. These investigations indicate that educating the future citizen is impacted by three phenomena; globalization, democratic processes and information technology (IT) Therefore it can be said that the future citizen should have at least three characteristics: global, democratic and sensitive to IT.