There are many competing proposals about what is necessary for good citizenship and effective citizenship education. Our concept of citizenship defines to what or whom we give our loyalty, how we relate to other citizens, and our vision of the ideal society. The concerns are not so much with the legal definition of citizenship as with some normative sense of good citizenship. This sense of what constitutes the good citizen varies across time, cultures, genders, and political philosophies. These disputes lead to a range of models of good citizenship.
Citizens vary in terms of participation and engagement in society.
Citizens also vary in their realities within Canada, with some groups experiencing a profound sense of exclusion on the basis of language, race, ethnicity, gender, belief, and poverty. In recent years, the concept of citizenship has become more inclusive. In this view, there are multiple ways of being citizen. In Europe, a person might be a citizen of France and of the European Union, the latter as a supra-national category. In Canada, a person might be a citizen of a First Nation or a citizen of Quebec, and also a citizen of Canada.