The main discourse in the context of European citizenship is that of ‘active participation’, that celebrates individual agency, self-responsibility and self-regulation. In policy texts, the ideal student-citizen is portrayed as ‘active’, ‘participative’ and as someone who takes full responsibility for his/hers education and future life, expectations that in previous research have been showed to be particularly difficult to identify with for e.g. refugee students, students with disabilities and youth ‘at risk’. But what about the apparently ‘ideal’ students; academically well achieving middle-class students who, at least from an outside perspective, act and behave in accordance with these expectations – to what extent do they identify with these ideals? By highlighting experiences and thoughts by eleven individuals in transition between adolescence and adulthood who in a previous study have been observed to be particularly ‘participative’ in school, the paper discusses and problematizes processes of subjectification in relation to ‘active participation’. The discussion draws on an understanding of ‘education as citizenship’, with links to participatory and deliberative theories of democracy and citizenship, emphasizing citizenship as a participative and deliberative process with inclusive/exclusive dimensions, and concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding and enacting citizenship and participation as pluralistic and diverse.