Human rights and teacher education in the United States: status and prospects

• In Event: Pre-service teacher education and human rights: moving beyond aspirations to good practices

Proposal

Despite decades of international initiatives to promote human rights education at primary and secondary levels, and the recent trend of emergent human rights programs in colleges and universities in the United States, there is little evidence that human rights are a meaningful component of US teacher preparation programs (TPPs). As part of a research collaborative that prepared a stakeholder shadow report for the US third cycle Universal Periodic Review by the UN Human Rights Council, I participated in gathering data from a sample of teacher preparation programs across the country to determine what, if any, human rights content they contained. We conclude, given the lack of integration of human rights in the field of educator preparation, the US is failing to fulfill its international HRE obligations. The paper revisits the findings of that report and elaborates on where human rights is and is not showing up in relation to education, and on the opportunities for advancing human rights in the field of teacher preparation.

As part of recent stakeholder “shadow” report to the UN, I led a team of student researchers gathering data on human rights in US TPPs. Researchers examined online information from 76 different education programs at universities and colleges accredited through Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), a sample of convenience from the approximately 800 CAEP-accredited programs in the country. Data was collected regarding human rights content in five different areas: 1) mission statements, 2) program requirements, 3) courses and curriculum, 4) student groups, 5) research programs or institutes. Researchers found no reference to human rights in university, school, or program mission statements, nor any evidence that explicit human rights content was a requirement of any TPP at the 76 providers examined. This research indicates human rights are marginal in the field of education generally and TPPs specifically.

Despite these findings, opportunities exist to extend the integration of human rights into TPPs. Through the integration content, skills, values, and attitudes, HRE can thread together the various strands of teacher preparation curricula, which often divide pedagogic methods from subject area content. Further, because the HRE framework emphasizes the ethical and political responsibilities of teaching, it can balance the prominence given to de-contextualized technique and practice. Additional opportunities exist to build on initiatives within specific teacher preparation subfields, such as the emphasis on ‘empathy’ as a fundamental practice for English Language Arts, or the STEM field efforts to embed science education within civic learning and service frameworks. The National Council for the Social Studies has adopted human rights as an overarching framework within social studies education.

In our report, we concluded that the US is not fulfilling its international obligations for HRE. Nowhere is this more evident than in teacher education, which has the downstream impact of limiting HRE in primary and secondary classrooms. Teachers, and teacher educators, need to take human rights seriously as framework for promoting the critical content and practices, professional identities, and social and political responsibilities of teachers.

Author

• Glenn Mitoma, University of Connecticut