Ivan Illich and Contemporaries: Comparing Views of School Reform

Ivan Illich is the author of four books published in the United States: Celebration of Awareness: A Call for Institutional Revolution; The Church, Change and Development; De-Schooling Society; and Tools for Conviviality. He has also contributed articles to numerous American journals and periodicals. His writings have placed him among those contemporary commentators on society and schools who advocate radical change. Illich was born in Vienna in 1926. His education includes the study of crystallography at the University of Florence, a doctorate in history from Salzburg University, and degrees in philosophy and theology from the Gregorian University in Rome. As a Roman Catholic priest he turned down the opportunity to study at the Collegio di Nobili Ecclesiastici in Rome in order to work with the Puerto Ricans in New York City. In 1957 he became Vice Rector of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. While in Puerto Rico he founded the Institute of Intercultural Communication and was a member of the Commonwealth Board of Higher Education. In order to assist in the training of missionaries for Latin American, he founded in 1961 the Centro Intercultural Documentacion in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Contrary views between Illich and church authorities on the nature of missionary activities in Latin American resulted in the severance of denominational ties with CIDOC in 1968. The purpose of this study is to determine, in a limited manner, the relative nature of Illich\u27s contribution to contemporary literature which advocates social and educational reform. The determination is made by a comparison of the writings of Illich with other selected contemporary commentators on school reform..