The article examines topical issues of civic education. The subject of the analysis is a contradiction between specific goal setting of the educational process, on the one hand, and the variety and unpredictabilityof political life, on the other. This contradiction is particularly pronounced in transitional-inversion types of societies, including Russia. The aim of the article is to study approaches to the construction of a modernmodel of civic education that provides effective functional and dynamic interaction of the political systemand its social environment. The main attention is paid to what theoretical developments may constitute theconceptual framework of a modern model of civic education. The competence approach to civic education isgeneralized. This approach emphasizes the importance of matching the cognitive, emotional and behavioralcomponents of citizenship, as well as its effective implementation in the relationship of the citizen withthe public and political institutions. At the same time the perspective directions of civic education (civicengagement, rational behavior, the balance of interests of the state, society and the individual, et al.) aredetermined in view of “skills of the 21st century” (leadership, critical thinking, problem solving, individual responsibility, cooperation and curiosity). It is shown that many of these skills can be implemented indifferent socio-political contexts, as indicated by the examples of historical and today’s local and regionalexpertise. It is concluded that solution of the contradiction between “education and politics” is possiblein the framework of a broad approach to the definition of civic education. Civic education includes allprocesses that affect beliefs, obligations, opportunities and actions of people as members or prospective members of society. This definition implies eclecticism of civic education and reflects the interaction of the different social, cultural and political contexts. It is not so much the ideological content of a particular model of civic education that is important, as the development of knowledge, values, attitudes and skills that enable the individual to coordinate the cognitive, emotional and behavioral components of its relationship to society and the state.