Teaching Human Rights Mini-Conference: Open Access Edited Volume

This mini conference is part of a process that will conclude with an open access (OA) volume titled "Teaching Human Rights in Political Science": a state-of-the-art volume that leverages OA to make its material readily and freely accessible to instructors at institutions globally -- regardless of the library budget of a given institution, or the instructors’ own financial constraints. While there are many introductory human rights textbooks to assist with student learning, there is a paucity of structured pedagogical advice for instructors looking to begin, supplement, or refresh their human rights-related teaching.

The volume uses two distinct approaches in order to provide the greatest possible service to the broadest possible spectrum of instructors.

First, rather than covering human rights in an a la carte fashion, the emphasis here is on access points that allow structured inquiry into any right or type of right. The volume will be organized by three such access points: approaches, arenas, and lenses. The “approaches” access point addresses different tools and techniques for examining rights. This includes, but is not limited to, qualitative research (e.g. archives, interviews), quantitative research (e.g. measurement, data analysis), mixed methods (e.g. surveys), theory, and public policy mechanisms (e.g. policy planning for human rights cities). The “arenas” access point looks at those institutions where the battles for recognition and respect for rights plays out. This includes international organizations, domestic political institutions, international law and courts, and the practice and protection of human rights defenders. Finally, the “lenses” access point consists of different substantive windows that can be used for framing the recognition and respect of human rights and that may include their own distinct theoretical and methodological traditions. Such lenses include gender and political economy.

Second, each chapter will have two authors: an established (post-tenure) scholar and an early-career (pre-tenure) scholar. The way we teach human rights evolves as both our students change, and our understanding of human rights themselves, change over time. Thus, for a teaching volume to be of maximum possible benefit, each chapter must represent a mix of both established and novel pedagogical techniques. Further, the scholars in this volume come from a diverse range of institutional homes, from large R1 schools to smaller teaching-focused institutions. This will allow the volume to be of use to instructors across the same range of institutions.