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21. Ivan Illich DEBRA PANIZZON 21. IVAN ILLICH Renegade Academic, Intellectual, and Pastor A critical pedagogist, Ivan Illich (1926–2002) was concerned with the ways in which education as provided by schooling perpetuated and even legitimized social injustice and inequity. In 1971, Illich published one of his most famous books, Deschooling Society. Considered radical and extremely revolutionary at the time, it called for the disestablishment of schools (i.e., from early childhood through to university) as the chief mandating institutions for the process of education. Illich’s concern was that institutionalized education merely prepared individuals for specific vocations within the burgeoning industrialized economy of the 1960–70s, not for a meaningful life. The production- line processes, hierarchical and rigid structures, and explicit itemized curricula that comprised schooling at the time aimed to create dependent moulded citizens for an employment niche within industrialized society (Illich, 1973). Critically, he was not opposed to learning and understanding but considered that the education provided by schooling devalued cultural and individual differences creating greater class division and social inequity (Illich, 1971). With epistemological views aligned most closely to Marxist philosophies, knowledge for Illich was a “function of active engagement in real situations” (Bowen & Hobson, 1987, p. 391). This conception of education was embedded around a village model of existence whereby everyday activities were learning opportunities that benefitted not just the individual but also the social collective. Learning did not require a certified teacher but was the product of an individual’s curiosity, alertness, and engagement in a range of activities and interactions with others in the community. Not surprisingly, this view conflicted with what Illich observed globally where the formalization of education within schools and universities resulted in the compartmentalization of knowledge into packages (termed commodities) for dissemination to students at specified times often culminating in knowledge that was meaningless and irrelevant to the learner. As such this knowledge benefitted neither the individual nor society. At the crux of the deschooling issue for Illich was the hidden curriculum, which ensured that while individuals completed a legislated number of years of schooling, they were also enculturated into societal norms and ideologies that perpetuated traditional class structures and inequity (Illich & Verne, 1976). The implication of this enculturation suggests that the only knowledge that comes from formal schooling James D. Kirylo (Ed.), A Critical Pedagogy of Resistance: 34 Pedagogues We Need to Know, 81–84. © 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. D. PANIZZON would ensure future prosperity (i.e., schooling led to wealth). In other words, using subversive and almost indoctrinating means, schools created a dependency upon school knowledge so that “permanent education beco[a]me not the symbol of our unfinished development, but a guarantee of our permanent inadequacy” (Illich & Verne, 1976, p. 13). Even in 1976, Illich predicted that acceptance of this view would create an expectation that the entire life of individuals might be locked into schooling. Within such a culture, schools and universities become self- perpetuating institutions with the consumers of knowledge enjoying higher income, social status and other privileges evident in all industrialized societies, contrasting greatly to the expectations of individuals in poorer less developed nations (Pauly, 1983). Hence, for Illich, schools occupied a powerful position polarizing and controlling society by determining who was educated, what knowledge was taught, when this knowledge was made available in the curriculum, and equally important, which societal values were supported and reinforced by the schooling system. Philosophically, Illich considered schools and universities to be unbalanced institutions on a par with the army, penitentiaries, and even monasteries in that all comprised sub- populations of society that needed to be managed by formalized procedures and rigorous discipline. Clearly, the advantage of these methods was that individuals were pressured to conform resulting in a high degree of societal control or manipulation. This was hugely problematic for Illich not just in principle but also because of the funds allocated toward the development of strategies to maintain this control (i.e., funding research in psychology and sociology in relation to issues around student disengagement with schooling) (Bowen & Hobson, 1987). While the focus here is schooling and education, Illich questioned the legitimacy of all industrial institutions including the legal, media, medical, and transport systems along with the Catholic Church. For example, in his book Medical Nemisis (1975), Illich argued that medicalization caused greater harm than good creating individuals that were dependent on medical services resulting in many lifelong patients. At the time of publication his views had little impact in the medical arena but some 27 years later, many of his attitudes and views have been adopted creating massive changes to health care, particularly in relation to doctor- patient relationships (Wright, 2003). Illich has been described as a renegade academic, intellectual, and pastor in the literature. All these descriptions are based in truth in that he was extremely well educated having studied histology and crystallography at the University of Florence, theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in the Vatican, and completed a doctorate in sociology at Harvard University. Furthermore, he was an ordained Catholic priest and spent many years working with Puerto Rican immigrants in New York City and later in Puerto Rico and Mexico (Kahn & Kellner, 2007). However, so vehement were his criticisms of the institutionalized church that he was forced to renounce his rights as a priest losing the title of Monsignor. Given Illich’s own educational background, there is a degree of irony here: Could Illich have challenged and questioned so vociferously in the public arena without the 82.
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