Civic education (1) has become an important facet of the primary school curriculum within the Quebec educational system. As conceived in the new curriculum, civic education is responsible for a vast domain which is in constant evolution and should respond to the new context and to the constant changes facing the Quebec society. Some of these challenges are: the increase of migratory phenomena, the enormous ethnic diversity, several international issues and identity problems. The new curriculum emphasizes some of these social issues in contemporary Quebec culture, issues that beset men at almost every level of contemporary life. The general objective of the program is "to give to the student the opportunity to develop a social awareness in order to behave as a responsible citizen and be able to make enlightened decisions". The key element in order to integrate the new social and cultural interrelations within the Quebec society is the concept of citizenship which becomes the core of the curriculum. Issues such as living in a democratic and pluralistic society, the individual and his openness towards the rest of the world are some of the central themes around which different concepts should be integrated. The conception of civic education as conceived in the new Quebec elementary school curriculum brings many questions within the school context and as expected these questions come mainly from teachers who are responsible for the curriculum implementation. They addressed issues such as: the nature of civic education as conceived in the curriculum, the contents that should be selected in order to represent the different disciplines included in the field of civic education, the necessary pedagogical support needed in order to create significant experiences for the learner. As long as these important issues are not resolved we cannot say that the implementation of the new curriculum is representative of its orientation and assessing its value becomes difficult. Although if we are witnessing a diversity of emergent pedagogical approaches which are being conceived and applied by teachers within schools, we are not able to make any assessment of these practices due mainly to the confusion created by the curriculum guidelines. In order to bring some alternatives to both teachers at the school level and the staff in charge of teacher education at the university level, and in order to cope with the problems they are facing concerning the implementation of the civic education curriculum, we present and explore the following issues: What is the meaning of citizenship as presented in the curriculum? What are the characteristics of the citizen which the curriculum wants to promote? What could be some of the pedagogical approaches required in order to promote the curriculum orientations? By using graphics, tables, diagrams we will first describe the social sciences curriculum by presenting its foundations, its components and the main issues at stake concerning its implementation at the school level. Secondly we will be considering the possibilities offered by the new curriculum for the application of pedagogical approaches representative of subject matters integration. The nature of the different competencies which students should develop at the elementary school will be also be discussed in relation to the contribution that civic education can make to their development.(1) the term civic education is used as the English equivalent of the term l'education a la citoyennete.