Collateral human rights learning situations: what are they? (original) (raw)

Human rights education: developing a theoretical understanding of teachers’ responsibilities

Educational Review, 2018

The United Nations (UN) asserts that children and young people should have access to human rights education (HRE) and that schools are one of the key means through which HRE should be made available. However, there is currently limited knowledge about the presence and form of HRE in school contexts, and there is no established means through which HRE provision within schools is evaluated. This paper proposes a theoretical framework to support the classification of teachers' responsibilities in relation to HRE and argues that systemic change is needed within education systems if HRE provision is to be realised in more extensive and consistent ways. The curriculum documents of three nations-Australia, England and Swedenwere analysed to determine teacher responsibilities for educating pupils about human rights. The viability of the developed framework was then tested through applying it to the outcomes of these analyses. The theoretical contribution made by the paper deepens knowledge and understandings about the nature of responsibilities placed on teachers to educate pupils about human rights, and provides a foundation from which to stimulate debate about what constitutes effective school-based HRE practices.

Hypocrites or heroes? Thinking about the role of the teacher in human rights education Human Rights Education Review -Volume 1(2

Human Rights Education Review, 2018

Human rights education (HRE) seeks to provide young people with an optimistic sense that we can work towards a more peaceful and socially just world, and that everyone can do something to contribute to securing improvement. But, whilst the academic literature and policy documents frequently position teachers as crucial to promoting human rights and social justice, the literature is also replete with examples of teachers' conservatism, their compliance in the face of authority and their ignorance. In addition, teachers work in institutions which routinely reproduce inequality and promote a narrow individualistic form of competition. This article explores some of the international research literature relating to the role of the teacher in HRE specifically, and more generally in the related fields of citizenship education and social studies, in order to offer some conceptual tools that might be used to critically interrogate practitioners' own beliefs and actions.

Educating about, through and for human rights in English primary schools : a failure of education policy, classroom practice or teacher attitudes?

2015

This thesis explores the nature and extent of Human Rights Education (HRE) in primary education policy and practice in England. It highlights that the provision of holistic education about, through and for human rights at all levels of formal schooling is required by the international legal framework, and has been included most recently within the UN Declaration on HRE and Training (2011). The UK has signed and accepted most of the international instruments and initiatives that address HRE and therefore ought to be educating in accordance with their requirements. The thesis investigates whether the commitment to educate about, through and for human rights is reflected in English primary education policy, and shows that this is ostensibly not the case. Following this finding, it draws upon quantitative and qualitative empirical research with primary teachers across England to gauge whether the elements may instead be reflected in practice in primary classrooms and schools. This empir...

Fundamental Issues in Teacher Education for Human Rights: a European perspective

Journal of Moral Education 23 (3): 349 - 359, 1994

Human rights education is an essential part of preparation for participation in a pluralistic democracy. As Europe aspires to be a continent of democratic states accepting human rights as their basic principles, a human rights ethic should be a feature of all schools within Europe. Human rights education provides an ethical and moral framework for living in community. Moreover, this ethical position is backed in Europe by the powerful legal framework of the European Convention on Human Rights. This paper describes the features of two teachers' human rights education courses based on a structure proposed by Richardson. Both explore the relationship between moral and legal aspects of human rights teaching. The Council of Europe Recommendation on Teaching and Learning about Human Rights in Schools identifies three broad dimensions of human rights education, namely: skills, knowledge and feelings. The latter affective dimension, as well as facts and pedagogy, is critical to successful teacher education in human rights.

Teaching Human Rights from Below: Towards Solidarity, Resistance and Social Justice

In this article, we discuss our approaches, pedagogies, and practices for a weekly human rights club that serves immigrant and refugee youth. The research team is involved in a research collaboration with a public high school in a large urban area on the West Coast. In this article, we discuss some of our curricular and pedagogical strategies and students’ responses to lesson plans and activities that aimed to build solidarity, resistance to dominant and assimilative narratives, and action towards social justice. Our approach focuses on intersecting a transforamtive human rights perspective with the praxes of critical pedagogies and social justice. This article discusses a radical approach to teaching Human Rights along three key themes: student-centered human rights pedagogy, cultural wealth and HRE, and students’ articulation of human rights language into action.

The role of law and legal knowledge for a transformative human rights education: addressing violations of children’s rights in formal education

Human Rights Education (HRE) emphasises the significance of children learning about, through and for human rights through their lived experiences. Such experiential learning, however, is often limited to instances of enjoyment of rights and disregards experiences of injustice, exclusion or discrimination. By neglecting the 'negative' experiences, including breaches of their human rights, HRE fails in one of its fundamental aims: empowering individuals to exercise their rights and to respect and uphold the rights of others. Drawing on a range of legal sources, this article identifies a number of violations of the human rights of children in schools, categorised under five themes: access to school; the curriculum; testing and assessment; discipline; and respect for children's views. It argues that for HRE to achieve its core purpose, it must enable children to identify and challenge breaches of rights in school and elsewhere. To do so, knowledge of law, both domestic and international, has a fundamental role to play. Abstract: Human Rights Education (HRE) emphasises the significance of children learning about, through and for human rights through their lived experiences. Such experiential learning, however, is often limited to instances of enjoyment of rights and disregards experiences of injustice, exclusion or discrimination. By neglecting the 'negative' experiences, including breaches of their human rights, HRE fails in one of its fundamental aims: empowering individuals to exercise their rights and to respect and uphold the rights of others. Drawing on a range of legal sources, this article identifies a number of violations of the human rights of children in schools, categorised under five themes: access to school; the curriculum; testing and assessment; discipline; and respect for children's views. It argues that for HRE to achieve its core purpose, it must enable children to identify and challenge breaches of rights in school and elsewhere. To do so, knowledge of law, both domestic and international, has a fundamental role to play.

Education in Human Rights: Conceptions and Educational Practices

Education Journal, 2019

These paper article analyse the problem how the human rights are conceived and carried out made effective in the educational environment of two public high schools of the state system of education in Brazil, based on students' perceptions and teacher's opinions. Objectives of the study: Aligned to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) from 1948, as well as the fundamentals and the historical and legal milestones, the study proposes to identify youth perceptions and teacher's opinions about the implementation of human rights in the school environment and its manifestations in educational practices. Methodology: We used a questionnaire with open-ended and close-ended questions to students (45) and interviews with openended questions to teachers (17). The categories analysed were organised in: tolerance and respect to differences and diversities, gender equality, respectful attitude towards sexual orientation, age differences, environmental care, experience in peace and solidarity situations, valorisation and respect to cultural diversities. Conclusions: Research results analysis of both in students' and teachers' perceptions revealed that in schooling context, considering the established interactions between teachers and students, and students between themselves, pointed to occasional situations of discrimination and prejudice hidden into "pleasantries" and "jokes" emulating ideological strategies of concealment and dissimulation of attitudes regarding lack of respect to the human dignity, considered a universal principle to the establishment of human rights.

Notes From the Field: Teaching Students to Act for Human Rights

International Journal of Human Rights Education, 2018

The Council of Europe and the United Nations assert that human rights education encompasses three dimensions of learning: • Learning about human rights – which includes knowledge about human rights, their underpinning values, principles and norms, as well as the mechanisms to safeguard or protect them; • Learning through human rights –which includes learning and teaching in a way that respects the rights of both educators and learners, and recognizing that in human rights education the process of learning is as important as the content of the learning; • Learning for human rights, empowering students to take action, alone or with others, for promoting and defending human rights. Human rights education interpreted as education about, through and for human rights demands commitment, creativity and the willingness to go the extra distance to embed various perspectives and to learn from various disciplines. In order to achieve this aim, important steps need to be taken in the education system regarding curriculum, practice, school governance and student participation. We propose a series of adjustments to be implemented in the education systems and practices for a coherent approach in human rights education, an approach that is deeply rooted in today’s reality, an approach that aims at developing transformative citizens, able understand the world as a global community and to take action for social justice. The principles and methods of intercultural education, education for democratic citizenship and global education need to be incorporated into human rights education in order to create learning processes in which dignity and equality are an inherent part of practice, in which learning is experiential and offers students the possibility to transfer the abstract concepts into every day life.

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: