Abstract This conceptual article describes critical civic consciousness, a new theoretical framework suitable for engaging in research on school-based civic engagement opportunities when they occur. The framework incorporates elements of Giroux’s critical citizenship and Freire’s conscientização to critically examine existing descriptions of the civic opportunity gap in the United States. Critical civic consciousness offers a means of conceptualizing civic engagement opportunities that moves beyond the common sense correlation between in-school experiences and later ‘real-world’ applications that permeates existing research on the topic. Teachers, students and researchers can link classroom experiences to desired outcomes by focusing on the interactions between classroom members. This framework is specifically concerned with the civic opportunity gap associated with civic and social studies education in the United States but has implications for civic education in other contexts.