1 Adult citizenship education: An overview of the field Daniel Schugurensky In Tara Fenwick, Tom Nesbit and Bruce Spencer (eds.), Contexts of adult education: Canadian perspectives. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc., pp. 68-80, 2006. Introduction This text is organized in five sections. The first presents a conceptual discussion on the concept of citizenship. The second outlines the main rationales and orientations of adult citizenship education programs. The next section presents some highlights of adult citizenship education in Canada. The fourth section describes the current international agenda for adult citizenship education. The last section provides some conclusions and recommendations. 1. Citizenship education for what kind of citizenship? It has been said time and again that one of the main purposes of education is the advancement of citizenship. If this is the case, it is pertinent to ask an obvious question: what is citizenship? The innumerable attempts to answer this question have resulted in rivers of ink, reflecting many philosophical debates, sociological analyses, political disputes, legal disagreements and educational approaches. Indeed, citizenship is a dynamic, contextual, contested and multidimensional notion. It is dynamic because its meanings and characteristics have changed throughout history. It is contextual because, at any given time, it has different interpretations and applications in different societies. It is contested because, even in the time and space, there are disagreements about what citizenship is and what it should be. Lastly, the term citizenship is multidimensional, because it connotes at least four different dimensions: status, identity, civic virtues and agency. The first relates to issues of membership, the second to issues of feelings of belonging, the third to dispositions, values and behaviors, and the last one to issues of engagement and political efficacy. These four dimensions influence the approaches adopted by adult citizenship education programs.