This article is divided into two sections. The first section reviews the national high school history programs in Quebec from 1905 onward. It focuses on the national and civic identity developed through the programs, as well as on political wrangles over their identity-building goals. Because the Quebec public school system was denominational, and because French-speaking Catholics constituted approximately 86% of the province's population at the time, the authors only examine history taught in the French-Catholic public school system, headed by the Roman Catholic Committee of the Council of Public Instruction. Although the system became increasingly secular from 1966 onwards, Article 93 of the 1867 British North America Act prevented Quebec from abolishing the denominational system. A secular system was finally established in 1997 when a constitutional amendment was promulgated. The second section of this article continues with an analysis of the actual nature of the current program and looks at its claim to be promoting an autonomous, critical citizenship focused on social justice. Through the use of a descriptive typology, this part of the article seeks to provide an answer to the question: What kinds of citizens is the "History and Citizenship Education" program aiming to educate in Quebec's schools? Finally, it reviews the program's limitations and the gap separating the goals of the programs from teaching practices. This article thus constitutes a modest attempt at describing and analyzing a specific case of educational aims and discourse--namely the Quebec history curriculum. (Contains 1 footnote.)