Human Rights Education and Training Programs in Mexico: A Cross-Case Analysis of Practitioners’ Professional Knowledge and Practices (original) (raw)
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Mexican Law Review, 2018
In Mexico human rights education and training programmes are becoming one of the most recurrent outcomes in official settlements regarding institutional violations and abuses of human rights. Despite their predominant role in addressing human rights violations, there is little systematic information on how these programmes are conducted in practice. To fill the gap, this paper presents a cross-case analysis of three qualitative studies that explore practitioners' professional knowledge and practices in implementing human rights education programmes in Mexico. Each individual case examines some of the challenges practitioners face in the implementation of these programmes, the institutional influence on their work, and the role of their own experiences in human rights practices.
Building Professional Agency in Human Rights Education: Translating Policy into Practice
This article explores how practitioners teaching in Human Rights Education (HRE) programs in Mexico build their professional agency—despite the adverse context and institutional constraints—to better understand how they navigate the complexity of translating policy into practice and the scope and limitations of their individual capacity as mediators in the process.
The Human Rights Sector in Mexico: Evidence from Activists, the Public, and Elites
Mexico's political system is opening up, and the government is rhetorically and legally committed to promoting human rights. The country has been plagued by an extremely violent drug war, however, which the state has fought with an aggressively militarized approach. Both criminals and state agents have engaged in widespread human rights abuses. The Mexican human rights movement has grown dramatically in the past three decades, developing dynamic agendas, strategies, and networks. To learn more about its resources, capacities, reputation, and prospects, we gathered data in 2010-12 from local human rights organizations (LHROs), the general public, and Mexican elites. This work is one part of a broader study of local human rights communities and public opinion worldwide, the details of which are available at http://www.jamesron.com/Current-Projects.php. We began by interviewing a representative sample of 30 local human rights organizations in Mexico City and 15 LHROs in San Cristóbal, for a total of 45 local human rights workers. According to these informants:
Towards a Study of Human Rights Practitioners
Human Rights Review, 2011
The expansion of human rights provisions has produced an increasing number of human rights practitioners and delineated human rights as a field of its own. Questions of who is practicing human rights and how they practice it have become important. This paper considers the question of human rights practice and the agency of practitioners, arguing that practice should not be conceived as the application of philosophy, but instead approached from a sociological point of view. Whatever the structuring effect of political institutions, human rights is being defined more expansively by practitioners. The weakness of international institutions and the interpretive scope of human rights discourse produce significant opportunity for practitioners to interpret the meaning of human rights. Our exploratory interviews of a small sample of practitioners reveal widely varying histories, in which they interpret their own work as “human rights” practice in differing ways. Practitioners who in the past thought of themselves differently, now identify as human rights activists. They are also becoming more professional, but concerned about professionalization. Their self-interpretations reflect these concerns and also respond to the necessities of career events. Through the conscious and unconscious aspects of their practice, practitioners exercise considerable agency in adapting human rights discourse to their own concerns while also being critical of it.
A Case Analysis of Human Rights and Accountability in Mexico
This paper examines the problems caused by treating human rights as an issue separate from international power politics. The situation surrounding the Mexican Drug War presents a clear example of the limits of international attempts to depoliticise the issue of human rights. The War on Drugs has not only defined the extent of human rights abuses in Mexico for at least the past decade, it also acts as the major factor in debilitating both internal and external attempts to address such abuses.
Understanding what we do: Emerging models for human rights education
International Review of Education/Internationale …, 2002
The author presents three approaches to contemporary human rights education practice: the Values and Awareness Model, the Accountability Model and the Transformational Model. Each model is associated with particular target groups, contents and strategies. The author suggests that these models can lend themselves to theory development and research in what might be considered an emerging educational field. Human rights education can be further strengthened through the appropriate use of learning theory, as well as through the setting of standards for trainer preparation and program content, and through evaluating the impact of programs in terms of reaching learner goals (knowledge, values and skills) and contributing to social change. Zusammenfassung-Der Autor stellt drei Ansätze zur gegenwärtigen Praxis der Menschenrechtserziehung vor: das Werte-und Bewusstseinsmodell, das Verantwortlichkeitsmodell, und das Transformationsmodell. Jedes Modell wird besonderen Zielgruppen, Strategien und Inhalten zugeordnet. Der Autor schlägt vor, dass diese Modelle für Theorie, Entwicklung und Forschung auf einem sich öffnenden Bildungsgebiet richtungsweisend sein sollten. Menschenrechtserziehung kann mittels angemessener Anwendung von Lerntheorien weiterhin gestärkt werden, sowie durch die Festlegung von Richtlinien zur Vorbereitung von Trainingspersonal und Programminhalten und durch die Bewertung des Einflusses von Programmen auf die Erreichung von Lernzielen. (Kenntnisse, Werte und Fähigkeiten) und den Beitrag zu einer sozialen Veränderung. Résumé-L'auteure présente trois méthodes de la pratique contemporaine de l'éducation aux droits humains: le modèle de l'éducation aux valeurs et de la conscientisation, le modèle de la responsabilité et le modèle transformationnel. Chacune de ces méthodes est associée à des groupes cibles, des contenus et des stratégies spécifiques. L'auteure avance que ces modèles pourraient inspirer la conception de théories et la recherche dans ce que l'on peut considérer comme un domaine éducatif en émergence. L'éducation aux droits humains pourrait être consolidée par l'application appropriée des théories éducatives, la conception de requis pour la préparation des enseignants et le contenu des programmes, et par l'évaluation de l'impact des programmes en termes d'atteinte des objectifs pédagogiques (connaissances, valeurs et compétences) et de contribution à un changement social. Resumen-La autora presenta tres enfoques de la educación contemporánea para una cultura de los derechos humanos: el Modelo de los Valores y la Conciencia, el Modelo de la Responsabilidad y el Modelo de la Transformación. Cada uno de los modelos está asociado con determinados grupos objetivo, contenidos y estrategias. La autora sugiere que estos modelos pueden prestarse para el desarrollo de teorías y para la investigación, en un tema de la educación que puede calificarse de emergente. La educación para los derechos humanos puede reforzarse, además, mediante el uso adecuado de teorías del aprendizaje y mediante la implantación de estándares para la
Theorising and contextualising human rights education
Human Rights Education Review, 2021
It is a cause for celebration and an indication of a journal's development and maturation when a growing number of strong submissions enables the editors to increase the annual number of issues. We are proud to confirm, with the publication of volume 4(3), that Human Rights Education Review is moving from two to three issues per year. This development takes place alongside other initiatives. In cooperation with the World Educational Research Association (WERA) International Research Network on Human Rights Education, this summer HRER launched a dedicated YouTube channel that shares recordings of the WERA/HRER webinars that have taken place throughout the past year. Our YouTube channel also features an invited international symposium on HRE at the 2021 WERA Virtual Focal Meeting hosted in Santiago de Compostela, Spain with contributions from Japan and Europe that include presentations from members of the HRER Editorial Team and International Editorial Advisory Board. We are grateful to the many volunteers who have given us both practical support and expert advice, and to Line Jenssen, HRER Managing Editor, for the work they have put into this initiative. We invite readers to take a look and subscribe at: