Human rights education for civic action: teacher and youth engagement in an intensive, intergenerational program promoting human rights close to home

• In Event: Human rights close to home: human rights education for civic action

Proposal

In this paper, I present a study on how long-term human rights education (HRE) may influence participants of the three-year HRE program, Human Rights Close to Home (HRCH), as described in the overview of this panel and in presentation #2. As research on HRE is growing, studies on HRE for pre-service or in-service educators is still limited. This lack of research is likely connected to the fact that HRE programs for educators are scarce (Osler & Starkey, 2017; Sirota, 2019). While research on HRE for youth is more prevalent (Bajaj, 2011; Bajaj, Canlas, & Argenal, 2017; Covell, Howe, & Polegato, 2011; Hantzopoulos, 2016; Katz & Spero, 2015; Russell, 2018), few studies offer empirical research on long-term HRE programs.
The HRCH program offers a unique opportunity to study how teachers and youth engaged in long-term HRE may change in their knowledge, skills, attitudes and behavior around both human rights education and civic action as well as in their relationships with their communities in and out of school. Community members include such groups as students, other teachers, administration, staff, families, and community organization staff and volunteers. Research begins with the selection of the participants in spring 2022 for the first summer institute.
Our research questions are:
Does – and how does - long-term engagement with human rights professional development - change teachers’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, and practices around teaching human rights and civics education?

Does – and how does - long-term engagement with human rights education influence young people’s knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors around human rights action and civics participation?

Do – and how do - teachers' and young people's perceptions of each other change through a shared experience of an intensive human rights education program?

Does – and how does – long-term engagement with human rights professional development - change teachers’ and young people’s relationships with school administration, staff, students, families, and community organizations?

Data collection methods include:
1. observations of teacher participants’ classrooms before during and after the HRCH program, to understand their pedagogical methods and classroom environment;
2. review of teacher participants’ curriculum content and artifacts of student work;
3. annual surveys with teacher and youth participants;
4. interviews with a selection of student and teacher participants pre-program (June), post-program/beginning of academic year (August), midway through the academic year (December); and end of the academic year (June);
5. observations of teachers’ HRE professional development and youth and teachers’ HRE partnership projects with community organizations.
The goal is to understand participants’ experience with the program including how it may influence educators’ teaching style and content, attitudes about their own capacity around human rights action and civic engagement, and interaction with other stakeholders. We will analyze youth participants’ experience regarding how it may influence their knowledge, skills and confidence around leadership, human rights action, and civic engagement as well as their interactions with other stakeholders.

Author

• Sandra Sirota, University of Connecticut