This paper proposes to reflect upon the role of associations in modern democracies, more specifically in order to think about the education taking place within their ranks. From Tocqueville to today, the link between individualism and freedom of association has been thought through. How can the primacy of consent for any link to be forged be reconciled with the educational project – where one chooses neither parents nor, or to a very limited degree, one’s teachers and fellow pupils? How can different educational loci and agents concur in developing autonomous individuals? The political philosophy of education can clarify matters. In locating itself within Marcel Gauchet’s theoretical framework for his wide-ranging studies on the gradual deployment of the principle of legitimate individualism during the centuries of modernity, this paper will argue that any thinking regarding the conditions necessary for education (in particular that of one of them, authority) will be enriched by the following considerations : 1) the analysis of the kind of articulation between individual and collective that associations represent 2) the point of view of a complementarity between the legitimacy of various educational loci and agents, associations included 3) the examination of the relations of authority that can develop within associations.