Revisiting the critiques of Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society

Abstract

Late in 1970, Harper and Row Publishers Inc. started working on the first edition of Illich’s Deschooling Society in New York. In the spring of 1971 the book reached the libraries all over the world. On this essay I attempt to tackle the most important biographical features of the author of this book. Thus, I go over articles, book reviews, books, and unpublished theses written by scholars from the United States, Germany, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Russia, Argentina, and France, which offer various reactions to Deschooling Society. Most of the analysis and critiques made on Illich’s book were written in the early 1970’s. These publications were not related, strictly speaking, to scholarly research. In the last forty years there were only nine theses on Deschooling Society. Although there has been a renewed interest in Illich since the beginning of the twenty first century, there is little academic research opening new ways and articulating new interpretations. Further research on Illich’s thought – not limited to Deschooling Society – would enrich current efforts to integrate Illich’s ideas into innovative pedagogical proposals.