In this thesis I develop a model of the citizen which offers a resolution to the tension
between the individual and society. This is done in two interconnected parts. In the first
part of the thesis I establish the form of the citizen through a comparative analysis of the
manifestation of the tension between the individual and society in the politicoeducational
projects of Rousseau, Dewey and Freire in conversation with contemporary
debates on the citizen. I identify the impact and influence that Rousseau, Dewey and
Freire have had on the contemporary debate, address their shortcomings through critical
comparison and strengthen that conception within the context of the contemporary
citizen. The conclusion is a citizen that is defined and discovered by the subjects that
seek to embody its values. It is a bottom-up model that I call the Critical Citizen.
In the second part of the thesis I investigate what model of education is suited for
the development of the Critical Citizen and the political conditions necessary for its
realisation. I offer an interactional and an institutional response to this investigation
which addresses the relationships between members of a school as well as the
relationship between the school and society. Both responses are developed through an
analysis of authority as an instantiation of the tension between the individual and society,
and of democratic education as a potential resolution to the problem of authority. I
conclude my investigation with two radical recommendations, the first interactional and
the second institutional, which is informed by the politico-educational projects of
Rousseau, Dewey and Freire and the methodology which underpins their practice. I
argue in favour of the large-scale incorporation of internally democratic schooling in
schools in the UK and the federated disestablishment of education and state in order to
protect the individuals subject to education from the coercive force of the state and of
the free market