This article presents a comparative study on the interrelation between social class and citizenship in France and Brazil. It shows that from a sociological point of view, rights and duties are not equitably distributed among populations living in the same state. Drawing on sociological work, the results presented in this text demonstrate how certain social classes are fuller citizens than others. However, this situation, referred to as second-class citizenship, affects not only disadvantaged social classes, but also ethno-religious minorities within each state who often perceive themselves as excluded or victims of xenophobia—or at least marginalized, which impedes the citizenship imagined by educators, who have nevertheless included aims, content, and practices of citizenship education in training programs. Second-class citizenship is clearly not experienced uniformly. Everything depends, and varies from one era to another and from one country to another according to its social, economic, and political context. However, this text identifies some invariants within social groups who perceive themselves, or are perceived, as second-class citizens—notably frustration, behaviors qualified as uncivic, the expression of despair, a lack of self-esteem if not self-hatred, or even the abandonment of the defense of the common good.