The findings presented here are derived from a subset of data from a larger study, the Global Concerns Study (GCS). GCS was a two-year study (1999-2001) that addressed the following question: What do pre-servi ce and in -service social studies teachers in Hong Kong, southern China, and Minnesota consider to be the most important citizenship and environmental issues that need to be addressed in the 21st century? This paper reports and compares survey results from the two Chinese samples., reporting on what a sample of educators in the nearby but politically and economically separate cities of Hong Kong and Guangzhou think are the ideal characteristics of future citizens. With the historical events that divide the two cities, the author finds different emphases, but also a common tendency in both places to emphasizes the less political and controversial elements of citizenship education. Despite some ambiguities, the findings of this study are consistent with other findings of a tendency in both Hong Kong and China to prioritise the non-political dimensions of citizenship education. There is enough congruence in the findings for the two samples to suggest that there are strong common cultural themes that overcome radically different historical experience in the past 150 years. At the same time there is enough evidence of difference in emphasis to suggest that even with cities in such close proximity these historical and social forces have had some impact. Whether this evidence of future divergence or convergence, or perhaps a combination of both, it is too early to say.
