In recent decades pupils of schools in the western world have been given a new form of individuality. The paper puts forward the hypothesis that the construction of this individuality has been nourished by both the demand for emancipations as it was expressed in the critical sociology of education and by the neoliberal turn in education policy. It unfolds consequences of such an alliance between romantic and neoliberal individualism, and argues that some of Simmel’s concepts might fruitfully be engage to grasp important aspects of today’s educational culture.  Against this backdrop, paper discusses the construction of the new individuality in regard to educational changes in: control and discipline, individually adapted education and assessment and finally academic knowledge. Primarily by using examples from the Norwegian case, the paper analyses how recent opinions on these issues can be viewed as different expressions of an educational culture promoting alienation as emancipation.

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