Reading Between the Lines of the Ivory: A Call for Critical Human Rights Education

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 4:20 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Curriculum Making and Sensing Beyond Higher Ed Classrooms (Table 23)

Abstract

In the U.S., human rights is often presumed to be an “international” issue—not local and that injustices and inequities are “civil” rights-related matters. What if Indigenous, ethnic, and racial injustices and inequities were reconceptualized through human rights frameworks? Integrating community-based participatory action research and narrative/storytelling of students’ personal experiences and human rights cases covered throughout the duration of the semester, this study analyzes an upper-level undergraduate critical human rights education course designed and taught at a predominantly white small liberal arts university in the midst of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. In this inquiry, we explore how critical human rights education might transform teaching, learning, and advocating Indigenous, ethnic, and racial justice and equity within and beyond the university.

Author

• Sahar D. Sattarzadeh, Nelson Mandela University/The University of Texas at Arlington