Summerhill

a radical approach to child-rearing.

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Summerhill
A. S. Neill, A. S. Neill
Summerhill by A. S. Neill, A. S. Neill
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Last edited by MARC Bot
May 23, 2026 | History

Summerhill

a radical approach to child-rearing.

  • 5.0 (1 rating)
  • 28 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 1 Have read

Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing is a book about the English boarding school Summerhill School by its headmaster A. S. Neill. It is known for introducing his ideas to the American public. It was published in America on November 7, 1960, by the Hart Publishing Company and later revised as Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood in 1993. Its contents are a repackaged collection from four of Neill's previous works. The foreword was written by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, who distinguished between authoritarian coercion and Summerhill.

The seven chapters of the book cover the origins and implementation of the school, and other topics in childrearing. Summerhill, founded in the 1920s, is run as a children's democracy under Neill's educational philosophy of self-regulation, where kids choose whether to go to lessons and how they want to live freely without imposing on others. The school makes its rules at a weekly schoolwide meeting where students and teachers each have one vote alike. Neill discarded other pedagogies for one of the innate goodness of the child.

Despite selling no advance copies in America, Summerhill brought Neill significant renown in the next decade, wherein he sold three million copies. The book was used in hundreds of college courses and translated into languages such as German. Reviewers noted Neill's charismatic personality, but doubted the project's general replicability elsewhere and its overstated generalizations. They put Neill in a lineage of experimental thought, but questioned his lasting contribution to psychology. The book begat an American Summerhillian following, cornered an education criticism market, and made Neill into a folk leader.

Publish Date
Publisher
Penguin
Language
English
Pages
352

Previews available in: English German French

Edition Availability
Cover of: Summerhill
Summerhill: a radical approach to child-rearing.
1990, Penguin
in English
Cover of: Summerhill
Summerhill: a radical approach to child rearing
1977, Pocket Books, Hart Pub. Co.
in English
Cover of: Theorie und Praxis der antiautoritären Erziehung
Theorie und Praxis der antiautoritären Erziehung: Das Beispiel Summerhill
1970-06, Rowohlt Verlag
Paperback in German • translated by Herman Schroeder and Paul Horstrup - 276.-325. Tausend Juni 1970
Cover of: Summerhill
Summerhill: A radical approach to child rearing
1964-01-01, Hart Pub. Co
in English
Cover of: Summerhill un punto de vista radical sobre la educacion de los ninos
Cover of: SummerHill
SummerHill
1962, London Victor Gollancz Ltd
in English
Cover of: Summerhill
Cover of: Summerhill
Summerhill: a radical approach to child rearing
1960, Hart Publishing
in English
Cover of: Libres enfants de Summerhill
Libres enfants de Summerhill
1960, France Loisirs
in French
Cover of: Summerhill  A Radical Approach To Child Rearing
Summerhill A Radical Approach To Child Rearing
1960, Hart Publishing Company
in English
Cover of: summerhill
summerhill
1926, london victor gollancz ltd
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Reprint of the Pelican edition with new introduction, 1985.

The Physical Object

Pagination
20cm.352. n.e.
Number of pages
352

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL22719191M
ISBN 10
0140135596
Goodreads
5637446

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL2950120W
Wikidata
Q15429112
BookBrainz
f3ca1cb5-f6f5-4e1a-879f-1f25241d30e3
LibraryThing
289786

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{{cite book|author=A. S. Neill |date=1990 |orig-date=January 1, 1998 |title=Summerhill |publisher=Penguin |isbn=0-14-013559-6 |ol=22719191M}}