“Understand the injustices that are happening”: student perceptions of learning human rights in U.S. classrooms

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

Proposal

Human Rights Education (HRE) is a practice-oriented expression of the high-minded ideals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including equality and respect for human dignity. In schools, HRE would ideally reflect the “about” “through” and “for” human rights definition set out by the UN, including: elements of pedagogy promoting student-centered learning and, specifically, critical reflection; and a praxis aimed towards learner empowerment and taking action to influence their environment in ways consistent with human rights values.

Over the past decades, researchers have documented a noticeable increase in the presence of HRE within intended curriculum. Studies of textbooks have also shown a dramatic increase in the number of times that human rights is mentioned. However, what is the ‘implemented’ and ‘achieved’ curriculum for HRE in school settings, and what might be the implications for teacher education and professional development?

This paper presents the results of an HRE survey administered to 152 upper secondary school students in a Boston public school in fall 2017, as part of a cross-national study also involving classrooms in India, South Africa and Sweden. The survey contained 28 open- and closed-ended questions that gathered student self-reported knowledge of human rights, peace and sustainable development; student views on where they learned about these themes (for example, in the classroom, in the school, outside of the school, etc.) as well as how (e.g., reading a textbook, watching a video, engaging in a social action project, etc.). The questionnaires were administered through non-random, convenience sampling to upper high school students in five classes at Boston Latin School (BLS).

The results confirm but also nuance the findings of earlier studies that have shown links between participatory methods and active citizenship. The findings indicate that a range of methodologies (through human rights) can be used effectively in HRE. However, the subset of students who rated the influence of the school the highest were statistically more likely to engage in learner-directed actions such as extracurricular activities and participating in a social action project related to human rights. These findings point the way towards further research concerning combinations of methodologies, the quality of the content used in teaching and learning practices, and more complex ways of thinking about what learners bring to the HRE learning experience.

This paper will present findings for the U.S. context and discuss the implications for teacher preparation and professional development. Relevant, preliminary findings for the research in Indian, South African and Swedish classrooms will also be shared.

Author

• Felisa Tibbitts, Teachers College, Columbia University