This qualitative case study explored the implementation of critical citizenship education in an eighth grade social studies classroom. This research was guided by Johnson and Morris' (2010) framework for studying critical citizenship education and took place in a public charter school located in a capital city in the southeastern United States. The main teacher participant was a Black female social studies teacher with twenty years of teaching experience. Data collection occurred over a period of approximately seven weeks and took place in an entirely virtual environment due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. Data sources consisted of over thirty days of classroom observations, class instructional materials, a daily teacher's journal, two semi-structured teacher interviews, eight informal teacher interviews, and two semi-structured interviews each with four student volunteers. Constant comparative data analysis included multiple cycles of coding. Findings from this study highlight the teacher's own critical orientation towards citizenship and the salience of modeling her sense of identity for her students. The teacher adopted a humanistic approach to history education, through which she hoped to expand her students' understanding of history while also engaging them in inquiry into human values and culture. The tensions between the teacher's professional goals and her personal identity influenced her decisions about disclosure and controversy in the classroom, and she maintained students' optimism by infusing a critical curriculum with messages of hope. These findings reveal opportunities for future research and offer important implications for students, teachers, teacher educators, and the field of social studies. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]