Re-examining the Future: The challenge for citizenship education

Abstract This article begins by noting the importance of citizenship education in the revised national curriculum and stresses the need for this to include a futures perspective. Whilst the value of a global perspective in education is increasingly recognised, the notion of a futures perspective is both frequently misunderstood and also under-researched. The main part of the article looks at research on how young people conceptualise the future, together with the rationale for, and some of the key components of, a futures perspective within citizenship education.