In this longitudinal interpretative case study, researchers examined the beliefs and practices related to democratic citizenship and critical multiculturalism of five beginning social studies teachers from their teacher preparation through their fourth year in the classroom. Using Banks's typology of citizenship as a theoretical framework, they found that all five teachers' beliefs remained relatively consistent. However, there was a clear division between teachers who believed citizenship was primarily about civic participation and those who believed it was primarily about social transformation. Moreover, they found that a complex interplay between the teachers' beliefs and their school contexts presented numerous barriers to regularly implementing classroom-based multicultural democratic education in practice.