Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire’s Ideas and Influences on Education in the Last Fifty Years

Abstract

The ideas of Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich occupy their own recognizable space for the intellectual history of education. Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Deschooling Society are part of the canon of classic books on education from the second half of the 20 th century. Even today their theses on education, social change and the role of educational institutions in society, serve as a starting point for seminars, international conferences, publications or teaching programs of the Faculties of Education and research groups still interested in the historical study of educational ideas. This special issue is related to the symposium entitled « Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society Fifty Years Later », which took place virtually in the spring of 2021 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Pedagogy of the Oppressed (published in Portuguese in 1968, translated into English in 1970) and Deschooling Society (published in 1971 by Harper & Row). This academic event was funded by a Connection Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) 1 . The organizers, Rosa