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Riding the wave? Human rights education within the world culture of GCED and SDG 4.7 ESD

Mon, March 6, 8:00 to 9:30am, Sheraton Atlanta, Floor: 1, Georgia 7 (South Tower)

Proposal

This article explores the world culture of human rights education (HRE) – both as evolving theoretical area and as a component of the recent international discourse on global citizenship education (GCED) spearheaded by UNESCO and also linked with Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 Education for Sustainable Development (SDG ESD). Theoretical developments in the field of HRE are reasserting transformative and critical HRE as the intended, emancipatory core approach. In practice, HRE enters into environments and is transformed by processes linked with vernacularization, or localization according to local needs and frames of reference. The presence of human rights (HR)/HRE within GCED initiatives invite two questions: how is HR/HRE presenting in the world culture of UNESCO’s stated GCED curriculum frameworks and associated indicators, and what has early application of these GCED indicators to national curriculum revealed about HR/HRE in these environments?

The article first presents the contested area of human rights and human rights education (HRE) and the growing theoretical consensus to assert critical/transformative HRE as the approach that is consistent with its emancipatory promise (Keet 2015; Bajaj 2011; Bajaj, Cislaghi, and Mackie 2015; Tibbitts 2002; Tibbitts, forthcoming). The literature review also presents the need for and the inevitability of vernacularization (Merry), or localization, of human rights themes and approaches, based on a range of local political, historical, cultural, social and educational conditions. Such processes have resulted in resistance to and incomplete or distorted presentations of human rights standards and values.

Following the literature review, the study examine show human rights/human rights education shows up in the world culture of UNESCO’s GCED effort. We first do a qualitative content analysis of UNESCO’s Global Citizenship Education (2014) followed by GCED Themes and Learning Objectives (2015), applying the “about” “through” and “for” domains of HRE (UNGA 2011), infusing the critical/transformative approach: (a) explicit reference to international human rights standards and/or “human rights” as a concept; (b) elements of pedagogy promoting student-centered learning and, specifically, critical reflection; and (c) a praxis aimed towards learner empowerment and taking action to influence their environment in ways consistent with human rights values.

We apply the same qualitative content analysis in critically examining related indicator measurements in use by UNESCO to review curriculum, including the UNESCO IBE indicators used in the Ten-Country Study of GCED (2016) with a focus on citizenship-related concepts; the indicators proposed by the UNESCO – Brookings GCED Working Group (2016); and the SDG 4.7 indicators applied in the Global Education Monitoring Report (2016).

Following the review of the world culture contained in UNESCO’s key policy documents and associated indicators, we apply elements of the indicators linked with HR/HRE to the national curriculum in four case studies: Cambodia, Mongolia, Uganda and the United States (New Jersey State) including, where possible, national plans to promote GCED.

The article shows that the gap between the critical/transformative HRE heuristic supported by theorists and the world culture of GCED-ESD as presented in key UNESCO documents. Moreover, in the examination of the HR/HRE and references to global issues within our sample national curriculum we find a near absence of reference to global issues (such as climate change, poverty). We also uncover problematics of vernacularization of HR/HRE within the subjects most likely to be the focus of GCED: civics education and moral/religious education.

These combined results show an absence of the notion of “world culture” as presented in the GCED themes and learning objectives and associated indicators; and also a lack of a critical/transformative HRE approach within the national curriculum examined. Moreover existing references to globalization that we did find referred primarily to its economic dimension, reinforcing the importance of national development and human capital theory of education. In the national curriculum studies, references to human rights/human rights education were subsumed within a pre-existing dominant moral or civic education framework focused on national identity and development.

Based on the results of this small scale study, we speculate that the world culture of GCED may end up revealing or reinforcing existing orientations towards a neo-liberal approach to education and that HR/HRE within the GCED discourse are unlikely to promote the critical/transformative approach in national curricular frameworks.

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