“We Are Dumbledore’s Army”: Students Becoming Upstanders Through a Summer Institute on Human Rights

• In Event: Roundtable Session 113
  In Roundtable Session: Civic Learning Across Multiple Contexts

Abstract

This field study examined 17 high school students enrolled in a summer institute for human rights and genocide education that took place at an educational center in western New York State. Data collected included seven day-long observations, individual interviews, focus group interviews, and all Institute artifacts. By employing a qualitative design that hewed closely to the social constructivist paradigm (Crotty, 1998), we found that the students felt empowered to pursue their short and long-term goals on becoming human rights upstanders through the role models in their lives who influenced them to come to the Institute and the various experiences they had during the workshops and field trips included in the Institute program.

Authors

• Robert Lawrence Dahlgren, SUNY - College at Fredonia

• Jill M. Gradwell, Buffalo State College - SUNY

• Misty Dawn Rodeheaver, Buffalo State College - SUNY