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Ivan Illich's Late Critique of Deschooling Society : “I Was Largely Barking Up the Wrong Tree”
Author(s) -
BrunoJofré Rosa,
Zaldívar Jon Igelmo
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
educational theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1741-5446
pISSN - 0013-2004
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2012.00464.x
Subject(s) - modernity , sociology , relation (database) , context (archaeology) , character (mathematics) , christianity , epistemology , philosophy of education , education theory , philosophy , aesthetics , social science , religious studies , higher education , history , law , political science , geometry , mathematics , archaeology , database , computer science
In this article, Rosa Bruno‐Jofré and Jon Igelmo Zaldívar examine Ivan Illich's own critique of Deschooling Society , and his subsequent revised critique of educational institutions and understanding of education, within the context of both his personal intellectual journey and the general epistemological shift that started to take shape in the early 1980s. Bruno‐Jofré and Zaldívar consider how, over time, Illich refocused his quest on examining the roots (origin) of modern certitudes (such as those related to education) and explored how human beings are integrated into the systems generated by those “certainties.” Illich engaged himself in historical analysis rather than providing responses to specific contemporary problems, while maintaining an interest in the relation between the present and the past. Under the metaphors of the word, the page, and the screen, he identified three great mutations in Western social imaginaries and the reconstruction of the individual self. Bruno‐Jofré and Zaldívar argue that while his written work, including Deschooling Society , generally had an apophatic character, his critique of education, particularly in the late 1980s and 1990s, is intertwined with his analysis of the parable of the Good Samaritan and his belief that modernity is an outcome of corrupted Christianity.