The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between modern democracy, desirable citizenship and social studies classes. In this paper, following modern democracy theory, “Elite democracy” (representing indirect democracy), as well as “Participatory democracy,” “Radical democracy,” and “Agonistic democracy” (representing direct democracy) were covered. When analyzing the relationship between contemporary democracy, citizenship and social studies classes, we focused on the concepts of “participation” and “contestation” presented in Dahl’s “Polyarchy.” In this study, the following two points were clarified: 1) Because modern democracy theory has various subdivisions and teachers follow different strands of democracy theory, there are differences in the criteria used to define the desired type of citizenship and, thus, in what is taught in social studies classes : 2) Teachers should set learning objectives and plan lessons based on both “participation” and “contestation,” understanding the strengths and weaknesses of both types of modern democracy theory, without being biased toward either.