What is Citizenship Today? A research in the Italian Context

The aim of this paper is to examine the topic of citizenship from three perspectives. First we wanted to understand how young people perceive citizenship today. To determine this, a study was conducted with a group of about hundred respondents whom we asked to define the concept of citizenship by answering the question :"Citizenship is..." The respondents answered individually, anonymously, and in written form. On the oder hand, an analysis of compulsory education programs has been conducted recently in order to determine what kind of an idea of citizenship they offer. We also analyzed a number of studies on the topic of citizenship (Gagnon and Pagé, 1999; Cogan and Derricott, 1998; Lynch, 1989; Amatucci, 2010). A combination of these three perspectives provides interesting inshights into the concept of citizenship education today.