The principles and rules governing the process of citizenship: investigating the characteristics and changes happened in citizenship education in Japan

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?