Globalization guru John Boli identifies several broad trends of globalization (considered to be a economic and cultural phenomenon):

1. The continuing success of the nation-state as the planet’s preeminent political form.
2. Cultural relativism and cultural authenticity.
3. Regionalism.
4. Consumerism as adaptive interpretation (of previous points).
5. Creolization.

Buddhist studies scholar Christopher Queen identifies three characteristics that Buddhism shares with globalization:

1. Cultural hybridity.
2. Psychological alienation as a result of (perceived) cultural oppression.
3. Civic and political engagement.

Pulling from these two lists, it seems to me that the context for 21st century character formation has these characteristics:

1. Cultural hybridity. We live in a pluralistic world, whether we embrace it or not. Pulling our identities together from diverse locations, we are both attracted and repelled by this trend.
2. Commodification as identity formation. We shop to define ourselves. The activity produces alienation, which only feeds the cycle more.
3. Civic alienation. Even though the nation-state continues to survive the pressures of globalization, in the US at least, most citizens are not engaged, don’t believe their engagement would make a difference, and perhaps do not even know how to engage. (My hope is that the likes of Howard Dean can end the trend in the US.) Yet global civil society grows by the day.
4. Over-professionalization of vocation. The professions seem to have lost their mooring in serving the common good (see previous point). Education for the professions has become entirely too self-centered while paradoxically become less self-fulfilling.