Citizenship education is a popular and contested phenomenon in liberal democratic societies. It is difficult to imagine a school system that does not contribute to the preservation and improvement of society through education of democratic, responsible and tolerant citizens. On the contrary, the execution of such education is full of caveats, controversy and resistance. This special issue examines the inherent tensions of citizenship education in a variety of national contexts (France, England, Sweden and Quebec) and from several theoretical and empirical perspectives. In this introductory article, we present an overview of the debates on citizenship education in academia and the media and propose a conceptual framework for the categorisation and comparison of the diversity of practices that relate to citizenship education. This model is then used to guide a brief presentation of the remaining articles in the special issue. (Contains 4 figures and 1 note.)