Education Commons^™

Book Review: Teaching For Peace And Social Justice In Myanmar: Identity, Agency, And Critical Pedagogy, Jennifer Thomas

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Emancipatory Human Rights And The University: Promoting Social Justice In Higher Education, Megan N. Patterson

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The Human Rights Imperative In Teacher Education: Developing Compassion, Understanding, And Advocacy, Cristian Aguilar Valverde

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Punished For Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children And How We Heal, Brian A. Davis

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Unsettling Settler-Colonial Education: The Transformational Indigenous Praxis Model, Jamal Epperson

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

In Memoriam, Nancy Flowers, Edward Brantmeier, Monisha Bajaj, Frances Vavrus

International Journal of Human Rights Education

The International Journal of Human Rights Education honors the lives and contributions of the following scholars and human rights advocates who recently passed away: Betty Reardon, Ian Harris, Johan Galtung, and J. Paul Martin.

Learning Stories And Children’S Rights: Reimagining Assessment In Early Childhood Education, Claire Boss

International Journal of Human Rights Education

The essay explores the role of Learning Stories in early childhood education and the connection to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989). The paper highlights the use of Learning Stories in a teacher preparation program and student perspectives on the value of narrative assessment in their work with children, their mentors, and families.

Hopelessly Aroace: An Exploration In The Margins, Shruti Sheshadri, Agharsh Chandrasekaran

International Journal of Human Rights Education

Individuals identifying as aromantic asexual face challenges living in predominantly heteronormative societies. This essay explains the challenges encountered living in India, a society known for its unique cultural and social structures. The authors use the oral history story-telling technique to understand the lived experiences of being an asexual aromantic. An analysis of the oral history highlights four key themes: liberation from structures, solidarity in the community, the perils of Amato normativity, and awareness of self. The authors call for increased access to mental health support systems in schools and beyond.

The View From Norge: Rights-Based Discourse And Human Rights Education In Norway, David A. Tow

International Journal of Human Rights Education

This paper uses the author’s time as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies to Norway as an entrée into exploring human rights discourse and Human Rights Education in Norway, a country that is often thought of as one of the centers of human rights work in Europe—and appreciates this association. It begins by situating human rights in Norwegian law and history, connecting it to the author’s home and teaching context. It then recounts the experience of serving as Roving Scholar, connecting it to observations both positive and potentially detrimental within Norway, concluding with some brief thoughts on a balance …

Making Curricular Space For Critical Media Literacy And Human Rights Education In The United States, Mischa Geracoulis

International Journal of Human Rights Education

This essay draws from a study conducted as part of graduate thesis work at George Mason University. The thesis examined the purpose of human rights education and critical media literacy, and the international inducements to include these subjects in the national education systems of United Nations (UN) member states. It compared the United States (U.S.) educational system to those of other, similarly developed UN member states that have successfully implemented human rights education and critical media literacy into their national education. The comparison revealed a lack of implementation in the U.S. despite its member state status and agreement to do …

Curriculum Development In Human Rights Education: Teacher Candidates And Faculty Members’ Views, Faramarz Yaşar Abedi, Seval Fer

International Journal of Human Rights Education

Human Rights Education (HRE) is believed to be crucial in teacher education as it equips teacher candidates (TCs) with the knowledge, skills, values, and behaviors to contribute to the establishment of a human rights culture. However, there is little evidence of HRE curriculum development in Turkish Teacher Education Programs (TTEP). Unfortunately, HRE is not specifically mentioned as a distinct subject or area of study in TTEP. This convergent mixed methods research (MMR) study aimed to understand TCs and Faculty Members' (FMs) views on identifying HRE curriculum components in TTEP. The study merged quantitative survey and qualitative interview data to provide …

Critical Language Education For Peace: On The Significance Of Communicative Agency For Education For Human Rights, Peace, And Sustainable Development, Frauke Matz, Ricardo Römhild

International Journal of Human Rights Education

This conceptual paper explores the intersection of human rights, children's rights, and peace education, and language education. Languages, communication, and dialogue play a crucial role in international understanding and cooperation towards human rights, children's rights, and peace.

This contribution recognizes communicative competence as inclusive of ideology-critical abilities (Delanoy, 2017) and begins by arguing that for students to become “agents of change and protagonists of their future” (UNESCO, 2024, p. 5), their communicative agen-cy must be considered an essential aspect of transformative education. The discussion will focus on the field of English (as a “foreign,” second or additional) language education, as …

Basic Needs Insecurity In U.S. Colleges: Human Rights Unfulfilled, Sarita Cargas, Tammy Thomas

International Journal of Human Rights Education

There have now been fifteen years of research on the basic needs of college students in the U.S. The studies have primarily focused on assessing the prevalence of food and housing insecurity. Determining who is responsible and finding solutions have been less emphasized. The scholarship has also not framed the problems of students’ basic needs insecurity (BNI) as human rights violations. This article argues that applying a human rights lens to the issue reveals that the rights to education, food, and shelter are not being realized, but further, higher education institutions bear considerable responsibility for addressing BNI. Human rights education …

Unrwa And The Education Of Palestinian Refugees: An Interview With Anne Irfan, Monisha Bajaj, Jazzmin C. Gota, David A. Tow

International Journal of Human Rights Education

This article discusses the history and educational activities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), an agency created in 1949 immediately after the founding of the state of Israel and the initial dispossession and displacement of the Palestinian people (1948). The trajectory of this organization and current uncertainty about its future, as well as how it has integrated human rights into its curriculum, sheds light on the rights and realities of Palestinian refugees.

A Human Rights Education Analysis Of The ‘Know Your Rights Camp’, Jason Seals

International Journal of Human Rights Education

This article analyzes the Know Your Rights Camp’s “Speaking Out Against the Violence of Policing and Oppression: A Political Education Curriculum” from the campaign founded by Colin Kaepernick. The article evaluates the curriculum with a multifaceted perspective, specifically, the approach to inform learners about their foundational rights and lessons to politicize and empower them for social change through human rights education. A significant portion of this assessment is dedicated to examining the curriculum's inclusivity, ensuring the educational content is accessible. The analysis explores the curriculum's role in promoting learner agency and resistance, crucial for empowering students to navigate and challenge …

Mapping Our Dreams And Rooting Our Futures: Possibility Trees As Essential Pedagogy And Praxis In Peace, Social Justice, And Human Rights Education, Maria Hantzopoulos, Monisha Bajaj

International Journal of Human Rights Education

In this article, we explore a pedagogical and conceptual tool we have refined and developed for the fields of peace, social justice, and human rights education: “the possibility tree.” Initially introduced in our 2021 book, we explore this tool in more depth in this article to show how such pedagogical and conceptual processes are key components of peace and human rights education praxis with greater implications for both research and teaching. Our aim is to provide an applied praxis-oriented framework for educators, practitioners, re-searchers, and theorists that are concerned with larger issues of peace, justice, and human rights. While we …

Volume 8, Monisha Bajaj, Jazzmin C. Gota, David A. Tow

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Teaching Human Rights In Primary Schools: Overcoming The Barriers To Effective Practice By Alison E.C. Struthers, Johanna Estrella

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Unheard Voices Of The Pandemic: Narratives From The First Year Of Covid-19 By Dao X. Tran (Ed.), Rachel Brand

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Human Rights Education In China: Perspectives, Policies And Practices By Weihong Liang, Jia Jiang

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Book Review: We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing And Transforming Justice By Mariame Kaba, Daniel Mango

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Critical Human Rights Education: Advancing Social-Justice-Oriented Educational Praxes By Michalinos Zembylas And André Keet, Lori Selke

International Journal of Human Rights Education

No abstract provided.

Toddlers And Robots? The Ethics Of Supporting Young Children With Disabilities With Ai Companions And The Implications For Children’S Rights, Nomisha Kurian

International Journal of Human Rights Education

Rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) pose new ethical questions for human rights educators. This article uses Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) as a case study. SARs, also known as social robots, are AI systems designed to interact with humans. Often built to enhance human wellbeing or provide companionship, social robots are typically designed to mimic human behaviors. They may look endearing, friendly, and appealing. Well-designed models will interact with humans in ways that feel trustworthy, natural, and intuitive. As one of the fastest-growing areas of AI, social robots raise new questions for human rights specialists. When used with young children …

Inside The Hirak: The Dynamics Of A Mass Movement For Social Justice And Human Rights, Abdelkader Berrahmoun

International Journal of Human Rights Education

In 2019, Algeria witnessed the emergence of the Hirak mass movement: a pro-democracy uprising marked by epic nationwide demonstrations and trans-formative public dialogue. Hundreds of thousands of Algerians mobilized to protest social injustices and political corruption, educate each other about their common rights, and articulate their collective goals. Through the Hirak’s shared platform, people from all walks of life took to the podium to galvanize the masses through ideas and action. The Algerian Hirak was a form of public pedagogy; a grassroots expression of human rights education. Why is the Hirak so important in the history of global social movements? …

Becoming A Bright Star Through Human Rights Education: (Re)Humanization Through Participation, Daniel Mango

International Journal of Human Rights Education

This essay explores a Human Rights Education (HRE) project that was initiated in the urban slums of Nairobi. The HRE project was combined with photovoice to support participants in the project to become empowered and make lasting change within their communities. The project took place within a pro-gram for young mothers called the Bright Star Initiative. Through 12 weeks of training, these young moms learned about human rights principles, how to apply them to their lives, and how to advocate for change utilizing a human rights framework. The project led to multiple interventions that are currently supporting the populations in …

Evaluating The Past And Charting The Future Of Human Rights Education, J. Paul Martin, Snigdha Dutt

International Journal of Human Rights Education

This article provides an overview of the field of human rights education (HRE) using an input/output schema. It examines the challenges encountered at the delivery points where instructors must contextualize the now extensive corpus of human rights documents and practices to meet the needs, and the political and cultural traditions, of their particular target population. The challenges also point to the dominance of prescriptive over evaluative HRE literature, the degree to which HRE is not a stand-alone activity and the limited HRE-specific teacher training. The authors therefore call for more research on the long-term HRE outcomes of human rights education …

The Ngo Coalition Against Impunity: A Forgotten Chapter In The Struggle Against Impunity, J. Patrice Mcsherry

International Journal of Human Rights Education

As Latin American countries moved from military dictatorship to civilian government in the 1980s, a burning issue was how to deal with the massive repression and grave human rights violations of the recent past. Should there be an effort to hold perpetrators accountable, or simply “turn the page?” This article documents and analyzes the history of the NGO Coalition Against Impunity and its role in advocating for the United Nations (U.N.) to recognize impunity—or, the negation of accountability—as a serious human rights issue. The combined efforts of dedicated human rights leaders and organizations in Latin America, other NGOs such as …

Zapatista Seed Pedagogics: Beyond Rights, Creating A Decolonizing Co-Education, Charlotte María Saenz

International Journal of Human Rights Education

This article inquires into a pedagogics that seeds a larger co-educational process outside of the Zapatista movement’s autonomous territories. A Zapatista Seed Pedagogics (ZSP) is theorized as an educational, political, and ethical process that confronts oppressive power relations at all levels, growing a collective political and educational subject. While still asserting the need for Indigenous rights within a neocolonial context, a ZSP transcends a human rights education framework to insist on the inherent value of all beings and their birthright to a dignified life. Drawing on a qualitative transgeographic study conducted through interviews with pro-Zapatista interlocutors who are themselves involved …

Ordinary Solidarities: Re-Reading Refugee Education Response Through An Anticolonial Discursive Framework, Zeena Zakharia

International Journal of Human Rights Education

Growing attention to longstanding issues linked to racism and coloniality in humanitarian assistance has impelled important conversations about power inequities in global education spaces and their related scholarly fields. This paper contributes to these conversations by advancing an anticolonial discursive framework for rights-based interventions in and through education. Drawing on a three-year case study of one faith-based school in Lebanon, this paper explores how one ordinary school in a refugee hostile transit country secured and protected the right to education for refugee children from Syria, within a significant broader context of multiple compounding crises. The notion of “ordinary solidarities” is …

“Our Misak Identity Is The Spinal Cord Of Our Education”: Oral History Of Gerardo Tunubalá Velasco, Patricia Rojas-Zambrano, Susan Roberta Katz

International Journal of Human Rights Education

The Misak people of Colombia are respected worldwide for recovering their ancestral Land, revitalizing their native language and culture, and building an education system from pre-school to university centered in traditional values and worldviews. Through this oral history with Gerardo Tunubalá Velasco, Misak educational leader and co-founder of the Misak University, we learn about his efforts alongside his community to create and sustain an autonomous educational system that guarantees the rights and dignity of Indigenous peoples in Colombia and beyond. His story, grounded in a profound love and communion with Land, speaks of the importance of Land recovery for Indigenous …