Young World Citizens, 1945–1969

Developments after the Second World War are considered in this chapter. I analyse the ways in which the internationalist, pacificist agenda was taken up again by young people between 1945 and 1969. Notwithstanding some continuity with the interwar years, the 24 years covered in this chapter saw significant social, cultural, and political changes, domestically and internationally. I examine, with a particular focus on the Council for Education in World Citizenship (CEWC), the ways in which young people in England learned to be international and peaceful again from the mid-1940s to the late 1960s. I consider expectations of enthusiasm as a desirable characteristic of the active world citizen on the part of adults and young people themselves. This consideration uncovers perceptions of appropriate and inappropriate engagement, and changes between 1945 and the late 1960s in relations between young people and adults. In a third section I focus on young people’s accounts of activities which connected young people directly with their counterparts overseas, namely correspondence and travel.