Citizenship/citizenships: old and new issues for education policies

The idea of citizenship is strictly connected with the society and culture it develops in. In the present day, the experience of citizenship as well as its formal asset have undergone many transformations, connected with numerous factors, like the intense and consistent movement of people and of goods, progressively multicultural societies, the consequent fall of material and symbolic confines between states and the crisis of the nation-state. Citizenship is therefore a multiform concept on the social (macro) level and the individual (micro) level. In any case, it is closely connected with the dimension of rights and individual liberties, and highlights the importance of processes of recognition of full dignity for all and the rights to difference and diversity. Citizenship has always been at the heart of education and of the development of educational systems, not only as an evident social mandate that society places on schools in modern society. Thinking of citizenship today in relation to educational policies means rediscussing the issue of the right of education and its full implementation. Citizenship is, in sum, an experience dense with ties and resources and is at the crossroads between the realization of rights and the exercise of individual liberties.